There is a rich vein of cinematic history that has been mined for raw material in the creation of action-adventures like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Braveheart―movies that carry the DNA of old-time Saturday serials and cliffhangers, designed to delight and disorient by sticking the heroes at the very end of their rope before they save themselves by the skin of their teeth. The Woman King is about a lot of other things, including a broad critique of colonialism and a meditation on the durability of the maternal instinct, but at its core, it’s a swashbuckling adventure that belongs with the other masterpieces of the genre. In its pacing, execution and commitment to form, The Woman King, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, delivers a crowd-wowing spectacle with some deep themes to chew on after the credits roll.
Viola Davis, in a role unlike anything she’s done previously, plays Nanisca, a general leading an all-female fighting outfit, the Agojie, as part of the Dahomey Kingdom’s military. In the script by Maria Bello and Dana Stevens, it’s the early 1800s in West Africa and the slave trade with Europe is the main driver of the economy. In Dahomey’s battles with the rival Oyo Empire, the victor sells its captured enemies to the Europeans, who profit no matter which side wins. Within this historical backdrop, Nanisca finds herself in the center of an unbreakable knot. The fierceness of her devotion to the women warriors of the Agojie is total, and yet the spoils of their victories contribute to an unspeakable genocide. When a young and troubled new arrival questions the righteousness of their mission, Nanisca becomes the fulcrum of great change.
That new arrival, Nawi (Thuso Mbedu), provides the point of view for much of the movie. As a teenage girl abandoned by her family for refusing to cooperate with an arranged marriage, she pledges herself to the Agojie and experiences the rigors of training and the thrill of battle even as she struggles to find a sense of family. General Nanisca and her faithful lieutenants (Lashana Lynch and Sheila Atim) are very hard to please or impress, but Nawi possesses some spark in her that no one suspects. It all makes for a rousing tale as our sympathies for Nawi deepen with each setback and brushoff, and our fears grow about the fate of these warriors. The costumes and set design create immersive moments, especially during scenes of royal audience with King Ghezo (John Boyega), where the shots are composed with the weight and light of paintings.
Two key male characters, Boyega’s King Ghezo and a Portuguese slave trader with Dahomey roots, Malik (Jordan Bolger), prove to be helpful for the Agojie but a weak link for the film’s script. It’s possible that a couple of enlightened guys happened to be found in the midst of the slave trade, but there’s not a lot of realism in the idea that these dudes would do the right thing for the Agojie warriors they encounter simply because they’re nice guys. Their gestures of virtue feel anachronistic, functioning more as narrative shortcuts to getting Nanisca where we know she belongs. King Ghezo is shown with his many wives, and doesn’t do well with having his will questioned, so what might lead him to agree to share power with a female military hero? (The spoiler is right there in the title.) Whatever self-interested machinations he might be making are unexplored by the script, although Boyega looks and performs like he was born to play the part.
But this is ultimately Nanisca’s story, and Davis invests her with a fearsome intensity. For much of the movie she wears a scowl with her hair braided into a kind of mohawk―definitely not a general you want to disappoint―but in some of the most affecting scenes, she lets her hair down to soak in the hot springs and connect on a deeper level with her troubled warriors. The script calls on Davis to perform physically at a level on par with that of Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant or Alexander Skarsgård in The Northman, except, unlike either of those acclaimed performances, Davis must also show a great deal of vulnerability and depth of feeling in her tangle with conflicting loyalties and past trauma. It’s an emotionally nuanced performance which also lets Davis grease up and kick ass.
While The Woman King features many scenes of battleground melees with swords and axes swinging and connecting, there is very little blood on the screen. The violence in this story resides more in the human heart than in any weapon. In fact, the most harrowing moments come in the quiet places between battles when secrets and truths are discovered, and identities come unmoored. That the story finds a way to center both of these things―fighting and feeling―accounts for much of the film’s appeal, and is as good an argument as any that more women ought to be in positions of power, at every level, in every realm. Let’s hope that’s no longer an anachronistic idea.
Photo courtesy of TriStar Pictures
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