"The first grader", based on the true story of a Kenyan man who goes to school for the first time at the age of 84, touch all welfare notes that you expect to hit. Adversity is overcome and the pardon is granted, lessons, and hearts are reheated.
But solid performance and a dislocated Visual aesthetic help to mitigate some of the potential mawkishness of the film.
Film Director Justin Chadwick, based on a script by Ann Peacock, follows the unlikely challenge Kimani no gan'ga Maruge (Oliver Litondo) chooses for himself towards the end of his life. When he hears on the radio that the Kenyan Government offers free primary education, it works in small, rural school near his remote home village to register.
He initially turned away, but quietly undaunted, returns and insists he needs to learn to read. Jane Obinchu (Naomie Harris), the teacher in mind, reluctantly agrees to take a chance on Maruge and find place for him in his class already cluttered. Jane and Maruge end by form a friendship, casual, with Maruge as a kind but mentor children it dominates, all that is kind of cute. (Children who hold classes attend in fact school at locations where the film was shot.)
But the decision of Jane and his unwavering loyalty to his old pupil are so unpopular with parents and community members, they place their own future in danger - professionally and with her husband (Tony Kgoroge), a rising government official.
Harris, who had a strong presence in films including "28 days Later", is feisty and determined in all the required ways, but it dials down the delivery of a large number of its lines which could potentially be clunky and cloying. And Litondo, a drive of former news appearing here in his first lead role, gives a performance always dignified, sober. Chadwick depicts the experiences of old of several decades in the form of Maruge, who fought with the Mau Mau rebels in an uprising against the British, in intimate and poignant flashbacks helping towers on the character.
"The first grader" tends to simplify the good and bad, clearly delineates the decent souls of villains, without much room for interpretation or the grey area. Maruge to become a sensation of international media apparently from one day to the next day, feels a little far-fetched. But the mere fact that it is such an inspiring story, it is a check out.
"The first grader," a National Geographic Entertainment release, is rated PG-13 for some disturbing violent content and brief nudity. Duration: 103 minutes. Two years and a half stars out of four.
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