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Derek Malcolm's rating
Guts and gravitas
By
Derek Malcolm
22 Mar 2007
This handsome if hagiographical tribute to William Wilberforce, the Parliamentarian who got the 1807 bill to abolish the slave trade through the Commons, will not satisfy those who believe there were many others as worthy as Wilberforce, including the black campaigners.
It's not that it perverts history. It just embellishes it to make the story palatable. The familiar phrase is "making it relevant for modern audiences".
Wilberforce, a weedy man with a long nose and a penchant for religiosity, is played by Ioan Gruffudd, who is neither small nor equipped with a prominent hooter.
He has a lot more acting to do than was required for Reed Richards in The Fantastic Four, and does it well. But he's your standard film hero, warts and all.
His triumph is heralded by long applause in the Commons, where I have always understood you can wave order papers, cheer but not actually clap.
Never mind, the film is not so inaccurate as to make the blood boil, though the conception of veteran director Michael Apted and writer Steven Knight simplifies characters into heroes and villains and often achieves only a plodding pace, with some jarring leaps backwards and forwards in time between 1797 and 1807.
This is a pity since the cast includes Rufus Sewell as Thomas Clarkson, every bit as great a benefactor as Wilberforce; Romola Garai as Wilberforce's eventual wife; Albert Finney as John Newton, the reformed but still guilty slave-trader who composed the hymn Amazing Grace; Michael Gambon as Charles James Fox and Youssou N'Dour as Olaudah Equiano, the former slave who bought his freedom for £70 and wrote a best-selling biography.
Amazing Grace may not be an outstanding success but it can hardly be called a failure. It does give us a good idea of the horrors of the slave trade, from which the British profited greatly, and has the guts to deal with the parliamentary debates fairly comprehensively without boring. But it's one of those period pieces that seldom catches fire.
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Reader views (1)
The screening of Amazing Grace was timed to coincide with the 200th Year Anniversary of the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. It was entirely about the efforts of William Wilberforce to pass the act through Parliament.
Somehow, I found myself quite irritated by the film as I felt that the film was a narrative of Wilberforce's role only and did not really highlight the more prominent roles played in the movement. It certainly came across as Wilberforce getting all the credit when it felt like his sole motivation was because he was doing God's work and it was his moral responsibility. The film was focused solely on the Act itself rather than the reality of the situation.
I found the film quite tedious at times and the casting seemed to be a complete listing of English actors currently on the screen. I felt that what was potentially a powerful and emotive opportunity to remind the world of a terrible period in history was lost to the promotion of one man's glory.
- Lizana Latif, St Albans, England, 27/03/2007 19:06
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