Movie Review: The Woman King

Last week I rented The Woman King from the library. It was honestly one of the best movies I have seen. At an awards ceremony called the BAFTAs last year, there was an actress named Ariana DeBose (she was in the Steven Spielberg remake of West Side Story, and she was on fire!) who did a really cool medley of the song “Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves” by The Eurythmics and Aretha Franklin and Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” while dressed in a hot pink jumpsuit. She gave shout outs to many of the female directors and actors in the audience, including Dolly De Leon, Hong Chau, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis and Michelle Yeoh. One of the lyrics of her song was “Angela Bassett did the thing/ Viola Davis, my woman king” and I didn’t appreciate the significance of this until I saw Angela Bassett as Queen Ramonda in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. I am still sad that she didn’t win the Best Supporting Actress role (of course Jamie Lee Curtis, who won the award, was great, too, in Everything Everywhere All At Once) but I still think she played her role so well. And then when I finally saw Viola Davis in The Woman King, I was like, “Oh yeah now I appreciate the song lyric “Viola Davis, my woman king.” Because after the movie, I thought, “Viola Davis is my woman king, too.” The whole film was just absolutely incredible and it was empowering to see so many Black women on the screen fighting against the patriarchy.

If you haven’t seen The Woman King, I will give a brief synopsis. It takes place in west Africa in the kingdom of Dahomey. There is an all-female unit called The Agojie who protect this kingdom and man, they don’t take prisoners. The movie literally opens with a fight scene from the get-go. A bunch of men from the rival army is sitting around a campfire, and then you see Viola Davis (rocking a mohawk) and the other Agojie women slowly creeping up upon the men from the tall fields and then they just wield their swords and weapons and fight them to the death. The women in the Agojie live in a community where they support one another, but there are rules: they cannot have sex and they cannot get married. Nanisca is the leader of the group, and she trains each and every one of the women in combat so they can be ready in battle to defend the country. Honestly, I thought it was just so dope how the king of Dahomey (played by Star Wars John Boyega) had an all-female army unit. And honestly I also just thought it was dope how there actually was an all-female army called The Agojie. There is a newcomer to the army named Nawi and she is fierce and also slightly overconfident. Nanisca trains her but also calls her out on this overconfidence and reminds her to be humble. Nanisca and Nawi’s relationship kind of reminded me of this scripture I read called The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, because a Buddhist reformer named Nichiren Daishonin had a disciple named Shijo Kingo who was a skilled doctor and also was skilled in martial arts. However, Shijo Kingo also got in trouble with the lord of his estate because he was always getting in fights and had a short temper. Nichiren always told him in his letters to maintain his composure and always be on his guard since Shijo was at risk of losing his estate for practicing the Daishonin’s Buddhism. There is a letter in particular that I really love called “The Eight Winds,” where Nichiren admonishes Kingo about losing his temper and at the end of the letter he tells him to not be moved by anger, greed or fame. Nanisca is strict with Nawi because she sees so much potential in her and she also sees her as a daughter (there is a twist but no spoilers here).

The movie also somehow made me think of the movie Women Talking. If you haven’t seen Women Talking, it is about an isolated Mennonite community of women who have suffered from sexual abuse at the hands of the men in the colony for decades and they are planning whether to fight, stay or leave the colony. They meet in secret, and each woman recounts the trauma she has suffered at the hands of these men, and the only man in the group, August, is truly an ally to these women because he had such a strong female role model who encouraged him to respect women. The women in the Agojie have also suffered trauma and pain, and in one scene Nanisca comes face to face with the king of the Oye army and she freezes because he assaulted her when she was younger, and so throughout the film I saw how Nanisca had to heal from this incredibly painful trauma and the painful process she went through to heal, and how she finally overcomes her fear and gets back her own power after the king took it from her.

If you ever get to rent the movie, I would check out the special features. They talk about the making of the movie, and I got to learn more about Gina Prince-Bythewood’s filmmaking process (she is the director of The Woman King). I got to also hear the actors’ take on the film and the process they went through to make the movie. Viola Davis has starred in so many great films. She stars in the film adaptation of playwright August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and she plays Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, who has a powerful voice and demands respect from the white music executives who are trying to exploit her music for profit. A lot of Black artists at the time didn’t get credit for their work or the pay they deserved, so Ma Rainey had to be assertive. Honestly I was just so fascinated hearing the actors talk about their acting process, and there is another feature where the actress who plays Nawi, Thuso Mbedu, is auditioning for the role of Nawi.

The trailer is also phenomenal. It made me want to see the movie. I also love the song “MY POWER” from Beyonce’s visual album Black is King.

The Woman King. 2022. Action/ Drama. 2 h 15 m. Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood. Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, some disturbing material, thematic content, brief language and partial nudity.