Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom - I Mean, We're Talking Loooong Walk

This may be the most appropriately titled movie of the year.  Perhaps ever.  There were such high expectations for this film.  On paper it's a knockout - a Nelson Mandela biopic with Idris Elba in the lead?  Come on, that's a no-brainer.  To be fair, Idris Elba hits it out of the park with his portrayal of the South African anti-Apartheid leader.  You just end up wishing he had been given a better film to work with.

The film spans most of Mandela's adult life, from his beginnings as a lawyer in segregated South Africa to his years as a revolutionary and then his subsequent arrest and imprisonment for 28 years and finally his activism after being released, ending with his election as the first Black President of South Africa.  The scope of the film ends up being its biggest problem.  Rather than focusing on some pivotal moment in Mandela's life, this perfunctory and cursory overview of his whole story feels shallow and moments that should make heart race or your blood boil felt hurried and trite.

Being someone who doesn't know much about Nelson Mandela, particularly his early role in South African politics, I found myself wanting the film to stay put on one time in Mandela's life and really flesh-out what impact it had on the man he would become.  I didn't know that Mandela was a radical during the 60s.  I didn't know he was arrested because he was involved in bombings of government buildings.  I found those scenes really compelling, but that whole era of his life is covered in about 20 minutes of a two-and-a-half hour film.  I'm also a sucker for courtroom dramas and I found myself thinking, "I would love to see a whole movie with just the court battle."  But again, the movie brushes past that part.  In fact it took awhile for the movie to settle on what the majority of the film would be about.  It ended up spending the most time on Nelson's 28 years in various prisons.  Now granted, this is a pivotal and important part in Mandela's life and the shaping of his worldview, but it doesn't make for gripping cinema.  The end of the film picks up a little as he negotiates his way out of prison and eventual gets elected President, but again, we've spent so much time on other things that this part of his life feels rushed.

Now not everything in the film was awful.  As mentioned before Idris Elba gives a towering (quite literally, Mr. Elba is a broad-shouldered 6' 3") performance as Nelson Mandela.  He commands each scene and often makes the character rise above the uneven script.  He is joined by Naomie Harris (Skyfall) as Winnie Mandela in a touching and often heartbreaking performance of her own.  In fact their relationship and Winnie herself are very interesting parts of the film that could have a film all their own.

After Nelson is freed from prison, he finds his relationship with Winnie strained.  This shouldn't be surprising as they have been married for decades, the overwhelming majority of which they have lived apart; both spending time in prison.  Also, Winnie becomes much more militant after her time and torture in prison while Nelson's views have softened towards pacifism.  These added strains cause the couple to eventually separate (and ultimately divorce, though not shown in the film).  It's an interesting pairing that was founded on love, but seemed to have been sustained through political necessity.  If only there was more time to explore these ideas.


So, while not without its charms, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, suffers from narrative overload and doesn't offer anything new to the biopic genre or to life and story of Nelson Mandela himself.  Even with the wonderful performances this film can't escape falling victim to one of the most important rules in storytelling: Whatever you do, don't be boring!