Out of Africa
Composite Score: 85.69
Starring: Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Michael Kitchen, Malick Bowens, Joseph Thiaka, Stephen Kinyanjui, Michael Gough, and Suzanna Hamilton
Director: Sydney Pollack
Writer: Kurt Luedtke
Genres: Biography, Drama, History, Romance
MPAA Rating: PG
Box Office: $227.51 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Out of Africa is the loose film adaptation of the autobiographical book of the same name by Isak Dinesen (the penname of Karen Blixen) and additional works by the Danish author about her time as a coffee plantation owner in colonial Kenya. The film stars Meryl Streep as the baroness/author/plantation owner, supported by Klaus Maria Brandauer as her husband Baron Bror Blixen, Robert Redford as the big game hunter (and her lover) Denys Finch Hatton, Michael Kitchen as their friend Berkeley Cole, and Malick Bowens as Karen’s personal assistant Farah Aden. In addition to the romantic drama at its center, the film also explores themes of anti-colonialism, power imbalances in marriages, “civilization” vs. “wilderness”, feminism, and racism. It received eleven total Oscar nominations, including a nomination for Streep for Lead Actress and Brandauer for Supporting Actor, and wins for Sydney Pollack for Best Director, Kurt Luedtke for Best Adapted Screenplay, John Barry for Best Original Score, and Sydney Pollack for Best Picture.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
On paper, this film should be a no-brainer as one of the best films ever made. It won Best Picture. Meryl Streep plays the lead across from peak Robert Redford. It’s a romantic drama that also explores complex issues. This film has everything going for it, but it still sits with a 7.1 on IMDB, a 69 Metacritic score, a 64% on Rotten Tomatoes, and only 3.4 stars out of 5 on Letterboxd. Instead of achieving greatness with its viewers, most audiences have classified this film as (to borrow from the vernacular) overwhelmingly mid. Sure, it’s not a bad film, but man, it just might be one of the most boring. The epic romance that supposedly lies at the heart of the film doesn’t really even get into full swing until nearly an hour into the film’s two-hour-and-forty-minute runtime. And then once it does get going, most of the details of the story get told in montages backed by voiceovers from Streep about the days passing. Are the voiceovers poetic in their language and decently engaging? Sure, but for such an epic film (in terms of length and locale), the story feels thinly stretched, which ends up making the whole thing feel vaguely underwhelming, if well-intentioned. The moments when the film shines, it really shines, but the many moments in between those feel oddly one-note, slow, and poorly paced, and the film definitely suffers for it (in hindsight, obviously, the film did make over $200 million at the box office in the 1980s and won Best Picture).
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
When Meryl Streep and Robert Redford share the screen in this film, it immediately becomes a film worthy of the accolades it received. The two of them (and Klaus Maria Brandauer as well) carry this film and elevate it to something worth watching. Obviously, both performers are two of the best to ever do it, and both are in their element here, along with Brandauer in his brief moments. Brandauer’s Bror is one of the more interesting characters in the film, and I think that it is for that reason that he received an Oscar nomination. He should be reprehensible as a womanizing, cheating, lay about, social climber, but somehow – to both the audience and Karen – he remains a more ambivalent force, not really deserving of our pity or adoration, but receiving both in part to go along with the more negative feelings. On the other hand, Redford commands the screen in his limited appearances, but he’s playing a role all too familiar to him and his audience – a capable and confident independent outdoorsman who seems to always get the girl. It’s this effortlessly cool performance that the audience and Karen can’t help but fall in love with, frustrating though his stance against marriage might be for our heroine. Though his character should feel reminiscent of a bygone age, encumbered by the problematic politics that go along with it, he instead plays Denys as a progressive proto-hippie, preferring to shun labels, to push back against so-called civilization, and to stand in opposition to most colonization efforts in Africa – though he is totally fine hunting elephants for their ivory, so he’s not without flaws as well. Streep carries the film, even with an initially jarring Danish accent, playing Karen with all her complexities brilliantly. From her business acumen to her philanthropic efforts to her pugnacious refusal to be ignored by the men in her life to her eventual embrace of the people and lands of Kenya, she plays the character with a combination of soul, realism, and longing that cements Karen Blixen in the pantheon of biopic topic characters.
The leading performances of its central love triangle help Out of Africa overcome some narrative slowness, giving the audience a trio of complex characters to dwell on and examine, earning it a place among the greats. The amount of time between compelling scenes with the main characters can wear, especially with a runtime such as this one, but those moments just about make the whole thing worth it. You can currently rent this film on most streaming platforms if you’d like to check it out when you have the time.
