First Grader is based on the true story of 84-year-old Kimani N’gan’ga Maruge (Litondo), a Kenyan freedom fighter who went back to primary school to learn to read. It is an uplifting, romanticised film infused with the dry beauty of the Kenyan landscape and powered by the moist-eyed performance of Oliver Litondo in the title role.
The film opens with the tall figure of Kimani standing at the gates of a small Kenyan school, determined to take advantage of a new government promise of free education for all. Battling many odds, including an apprehensive school authority and a confused community of his young classmates, Maruge is taken under the wing of teacher Jane Obinchu (Naomie Harris), who believes in him and the universal benefits of education.
As the pair deals with increasing interference from local people, growing tribal rivalries, and the gaze of national politicians, Maruge’s dark and distressing past as a member of the violent Mau Mau movement in the 1950s, as Kenya was fighting colonial rule by the British, slowly filters to the surface.
Screenwriter Ann Peacock and director Justin Chadwick (The Other Boleyn Girl) make this a theatrical affair, playing for all the prominent soft spots in a story that labours hard to balance between the inspiring story of an older man’s quest for education and the politics of a nation’s colonial past.
The storyline also simplifies the more exciting and complex aspects of Maruge’s back story as one of the rebels who fought British colonialism at high personal cost, reducing this more mysterious part of the tale to stereotypical cliches of torture repression lost family.
Cinematographer Rob Hardy adds to the romantic feel of the film with dreamy shallow-focus cinematography, and Alex Heffes’ uplifting music helps add additional punctuation to the apparent direction of the narrative. It is carefully designed to make you feel good by the end – and you will – but the unsubtle journey does not do the subject matter the justice it deserves. By the way, did you know First Grader was acquired by National Geographic Entertainment (NGE)?
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