Sydney Pollack directs Meryl Streep, Robert Redford and Klaus Maria Brandauer in this epic romance following the loves and struggles of white colonialists in Edwardian Nairobi.
Not my kinda movie. It idealises the poachers and land barons who exploited Africa. Thinking we should care about their affairs and breaches of protocol, their uncommon kindness to random black individuals who served them. God, I’ve just thrown up in my mouth. The film does have a beautiful adventurous epic sweep, Streep and Redford make for a complex pairing and the script is at least self aware of its troubling politics even if it feels these white devils are somehow exempt because of their occasional spikes of humanity.
5