Deborah Ross

‘Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’ is a very, very long walk indeed

This sanctifying film is so busy ticking all the historical boxes that it pays no attention to what made Mandela tick

Idris Elba and Naomie Harris in The Long Walk to Freedom (Photo: Pathe / The Kobal)

The biopic Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom is a timely tribute, and an earnest and respectful and well-meaning one, but it does seem like a very, very long walk indeed. It’s a slog, a plod, a trudge uphill, and of all the things you may have wished to say to Nelson Mandela, given the opportunity, what you will find yourself saying here is: ‘Put your bloody skates on, man. We have homes to go to, and other fish to fry!’ This is not, I’m assuming, what you thought you’d ever most wish to say to Mandela, given the opportunity, but the fact is: you will never have wanted anyone to put their skates on quite so much in your entire life.

The film is based on his authorised biography, and was made with the endorsement of family, friends and his Foundation, which is fair enough, but it is so sanctifying the result is, astonishingly, given the source material, almost wholly uninteresting.  Instead of focusing on one particular period, it tries to cram in the whole life, almost ticking off the events as they happen, so it feels like his Wikipedia entry, filmed. There is no nuance, no complexity, no shading, or any recognition that, to illuminate a life, the facts are one thing, but what we really want to know is the stuff that happened around the edges. It stars Idris Elba, a suitably great and charismatic actor, but even he cannot save this from seeming like a history lesson, as delivered by one of those teachers who can’t seem to breathe life into a subject. Plus, although his performance becomes surer as Mandela ages, the prosthetics become worse — by the end, I was minded of Eddie Murphy when he does his fat women — so I’m not sure where that leaves us, apart from not in a very good place.

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