Something tells me that if you are a middle-upper class white woman in her 30s to 60s, you will find this movie spell binding, informative, and touching.
I am none of those demographics, and saw the movie as typical "Africa is a country that needs our help" plea.
I need to offer no spoilers; the movie, was every bit unsurprising and clichéd as anticipated. Hilary Swank plays an nonredeemable negligent mother named Mary, who, stupidly takes her son to South Africa without doing...perhaps a quick google search? The Black Mambazo joke, the "does he have the flu," the all around idiocy on her character's part is NOT what any "regular" mother would do, and hence her endless boo-hooing and selfish behavior leaves no empathy. I'm supposed to give her a pulitzer because she ends up losing her son to a disease that kills people on a good portion of the African Continent??? Martha, is only mildly more redeeming. Whether I should feel sympathy for her, I don't know. She's just a whiny ole British woman with the voice of a stereotypical whiny old British woman. behaving like a whiny old British woman. Yeah her son was stupid himself, being such a wonderful white person giving away his medicine (oh how I wish we were all like that!), like everyone in this movie, he ended up dying trying to help those "poor Africans." He just wanted to take pictures!! Poor baby! The strength they find in each other, is giving themselves more credit than they deserve. They "find strength" also helping these destitute, helpless people, who seem to just always be helpless and destitute.
Talk about Naivete. Apparently the only thing white people seem to be portrayed as in this movie are "unsung heroes of the African cause." That apparently, only people listen to nicely dressed white people when it comes to the plight of issues on the African Continent. If, you really think you "learned something" about Malaria, you have no clue. Its a disease that isn't in your country because, well, you aren't disenfranchised or poor. Its really that simple, and they don't acknowledge that in the least. You really think, the governments don't know? You really think its a matter of knowledge? It isn't. Its people who can't afford the bare necessities, because of a long trend of being disenfranchised and indebted, then ignored.
And then she has the nerve to pretend she knows what the natives were going through?? Um, honey, you live in a pretty house in a pretty suburb, eat three meals a day, and if ish hits the fan, you get on a plane and leave. You have a giant memorial for your son, filled with what looked like every extra from every movie ever, the little whiny girl from X Factor, and spiffy new LBDs. And YOU know what someone who is living on a $1 a day is going through????? You know, I will re neg on my glaring Character reference. Hilary Swank DID play a very GOOD annoying, ungrateful mother. She had me convinced.
I am none of those demographics, and saw the movie as typical "Africa is a country that needs our help" plea.
I need to offer no spoilers; the movie, was every bit unsurprising and clichéd as anticipated. Hilary Swank plays an nonredeemable negligent mother named Mary, who, stupidly takes her son to South Africa without doing...perhaps a quick google search? The Black Mambazo joke, the "does he have the flu," the all around idiocy on her character's part is NOT what any "regular" mother would do, and hence her endless boo-hooing and selfish behavior leaves no empathy. I'm supposed to give her a pulitzer because she ends up losing her son to a disease that kills people on a good portion of the African Continent??? Martha, is only mildly more redeeming. Whether I should feel sympathy for her, I don't know. She's just a whiny ole British woman with the voice of a stereotypical whiny old British woman. behaving like a whiny old British woman. Yeah her son was stupid himself, being such a wonderful white person giving away his medicine (oh how I wish we were all like that!), like everyone in this movie, he ended up dying trying to help those "poor Africans." He just wanted to take pictures!! Poor baby! The strength they find in each other, is giving themselves more credit than they deserve. They "find strength" also helping these destitute, helpless people, who seem to just always be helpless and destitute.
Talk about Naivete. Apparently the only thing white people seem to be portrayed as in this movie are "unsung heroes of the African cause." That apparently, only people listen to nicely dressed white people when it comes to the plight of issues on the African Continent. If, you really think you "learned something" about Malaria, you have no clue. Its a disease that isn't in your country because, well, you aren't disenfranchised or poor. Its really that simple, and they don't acknowledge that in the least. You really think, the governments don't know? You really think its a matter of knowledge? It isn't. Its people who can't afford the bare necessities, because of a long trend of being disenfranchised and indebted, then ignored.
And then she has the nerve to pretend she knows what the natives were going through?? Um, honey, you live in a pretty house in a pretty suburb, eat three meals a day, and if ish hits the fan, you get on a plane and leave. You have a giant memorial for your son, filled with what looked like every extra from every movie ever, the little whiny girl from X Factor, and spiffy new LBDs. And YOU know what someone who is living on a $1 a day is going through????? You know, I will re neg on my glaring Character reference. Hilary Swank DID play a very GOOD annoying, ungrateful mother. She had me convinced.