Hi there, friends. I’m back, at last! For more than a year I managed to put out a fresh newsletter every 3-4 weeks, amidst a fascist invasion of my city, a squirrel invasion of my attic, the end of my long-term relationship, the near-end of my 120-year-old sewer line, several arboreal close calls, the death of at least one Senator, and a series of [redacted] at [confidential], all while consuming exactly one cup of (green!!!) tea* per day. So I finally needed to take a breather last month, but now I bring you our first-ever fan-requested installment. Let's talk about 2022’s The Woman King, directed by Gina Prince-Blythewood and written by some white ladies.

I watched this with Cara, Friend of the Newsletter, more than two months ago. I took notes at the time. Those notes make very little sense to me now, and the movie is no longer streaming for free, so I’m winging it. Join me.

We're in West Africa’s Kingdom of Dahomey in 1823. Europeans are swarming around with a Make the Transatlantic Slave Trade Great Again agenda. Dahomey also has to regularly pay tribute to a larger continental power called the Oyo Empire. Have both kingdoms been kidnapping each other’s denizens and selling them to European enslavers? Mayyyyybe. (Yes.) But Team Dahomey feels conflicted about it and Team Oyo is full steam ahead. Oyo crosses a line with its latest abduction of Dahomeans.

We open on Dahomey’s Agojie, an elite all-women fighting force led by General Nanisca (a majestic Viola Davis), ambushing an Oyo village to rescue the Dahomean hostages. They give the Oyo men the same amount of quarter that Patrick Swayze’s character in Road House would recommend. In fact they spend quite a bit of time ripping people’s throats out before Nanisca bothers to ask someone where the prisoners are. Luckily they do find and free the captured Dahomeans, and they give the village’s Oyo women the option to either

Back at Dahomey’s capital, Nanisca is received with respect by King Ghezo (John Boyega) despite initially being told, “He’s only seeing wives today.” One of the movie’s funnier moments involves Ghezo making his way down the receiving line of all his wives, greeting each of them with a nod and a perfunctory “My love.” Imagine this man on the apps today.

The first-string wife, Shante, is distrustful of Nanisca, as are some of the men in the executive suite of Ghezo’s court. They’re not so sure about her antislavery stance, given the slave trade’s load-bearing role in Dahomey’s economy. (Those stunning robes and jewels don’t pay for themselves!) But Ghezo relies on the Agojie to complement/supplement his army of dude-warriors, especially with Team Oyo getting more aggressive under the leadership of a menacing new general. Ghezo wants the upcoming tribute to Oyo to be Dahomey’s last.

Nanisca is the kind of character who makes pronouncements like “Bring me stronger warriors!” Not exactly a job for Indeed dot com, but families do semi-regularly offload their least marriageable daughters onto the Agojie for training.

Sidenote: Given that our last featured movie similarly depicted the role of geisha as, paradoxically, both an honored profession and a last resort, I had one eyebrow raised in skepticism here. But apparently it checks out; some Agojie were volunteers, some weren’t. Members included poor women, formerly enslaved women, and “rebellious” women.

That’s how orphaned teenage firebrand Nawi ends up at the gates of Adojie HQ. Disowned by her adoptive father after rejecting a suitor straight off of Epstein Island, Nawi is eager to adopt the warrior lifestyle. The Agojie’s Throat-Ripper of the Month, Izogie, takes her under her wing. Training ensues, with Izogie sharing helpful feedback like “You are cutting a body, not a yam.” Izogie was Cara’s and my favorite character, and yes, this information counts as foreshadowing.

Nawi quickly makes friends among her fellow recruits, but she just as quickly rubs Nanisca the wrong way. Partly because Nawi reeks of the arrogance of youth. Partly because Nanisca responds defensively to anyone challenging her authority, and it’s easier to take out her frustrations on a young trainee than on Ghezo’s powerful advisors and/or wives.

I respect Nanisca’s prowess as a fighter, but I would not call her a good boss. Consider the following pronouncements:

Meanwhile, two bros drop anchor at a nearby port city. One is louche Portuguese trader Santo, played by a Fiennes nephew (whose literal government name is Hero Beauregard Faulkner Fiennes Tiffin; talk about a metacommentary on whiteness right there). The other is Santo’s “childhood friend” (DNA test pending) Malik, whose mother was Dahomean and whose father (ahem) was white.

Santo’s the kind of guy who gets on Yelp and leaves a bad review of a slave port for having the enslaved people visible. Malik’s the kind of guy who hangs out with that kind of guy. They’re here so Santo can close some deals with the Oyo general, Oba, and potentially with Ghezo too. We don’t care. Back to the women warriors.

Despite repeated clashes with Nanisca, Nawi graduates from Agojie training with flying colors. In the final multi-cathlon that tests the recruits’ skills, she even doubles back to help a friend and STILL manages to finish first. Alas, none of this prevents her from getting mesmerized by Malik’s comically ripped body when they run into each other in the forest.

Sidenote: Cara and I booed this pairing from the get-go, because we’re not the studio executives who probably said something like “But we NEED an element of straight romance… and surely there can be ONE white character who’s not evil.” Biracial, morally-meh Malik might as well be wearing a shirt that says Ask Me About the Compromise That Put Me In This Movie. But to do that, he would have to cover his abs, which were likely also a key part of the compromise.

Malik and Santo meet with Ghezo to talk about optimizing the enslavement pipeline, but Ghezo isn’t interested. He wants to pivot into the palm oil business, as Nanisca has suggested.

He’s also considering appointing a (drumroll) Woman King, an official co-ruler. Shante’s lobbying hard for the position, but other characters scoff at the idea that a stereotypically feminine woman could make a strong leader. Odds are on Nanisca getting selected for this role.

Sidenote: I was a little bummed by the movie’s attitude toward Shante. Narratively she’s treated like an object of contempt, not a legitimate rival for Nanisca. Which, fine, plenty of women are contemptible! And Shante’s proslavery position puts her firmly in Not My Girlboss territory. But the movie seems to look down on her specifically because she’s not a sword-wielding throat-ripper, as if there aren’t myriad ways to be a formidable woman.

Malik, who’s now spoken to Nawi twice (2x) and therefore of course is sweet on her, warns her that Team Oyo plans to attack Team Dahomey. So the Agojie orchestrate a preemptive sneak-attack on Oyo involving the following:

But Nanisca nearly derails the plan by spending too long trying to kill Oba. Why? Because, FLASHBACK WITH CONTENT WARNING, years ago Oba captured and assaulted her. She escaped, but not before becoming pregnant. When she gave birth, she had her second-in-command/bff/I’m-gonna-say-life-partner Amenza make alternative arrangements for the baby.

And that baby? Was Nawi. Sigh. I have a headache.

How do we know this for sure? Well, obviously, because Nanisca embedded a shark’s tooth in her baby’s shoulder before giving the baby away, and a quick dig under the scar on Nawi’s shoulder reveals an embedded shark’s tooth. Somehow still less invasive than a 23 and Me kit.

I was very much on board with this being a story of found/chosen family, of sisterhood and motherhood outside the bounds of blood ties, but the shadow of the studio executive has fallen upon us once again. (Maybe I’m giving Maria Bello too much credit here; maybe this was her vision all along.)

But okay. I can appreciate that this is also a story about overcoming trauma and splintered identity. After revealing her secrets, Nanisca reflects on a dream in which she’s terrified of a vague beast. “The beast I’m so afraid of: It is me… I’ve hidden her away… but I hear her now.” I wouldn’t call this groundbreaking dialogue, but Davis could sell the heck out of a script by Tommy Wiseau, so no complaints.

All of which to say: When Nawi and a bunch of other Agojie (including Izogie, our throat-ripping icon) get captured by Team Oyo, Nanisca does not take it well. Ghezo has an “I like people who weren’t captured” response to the situation. So Nanisca ditches her coronation as Woman King and sets off on a solo rescue mission—only to be voluntarily joined by the rest of her warriors, plus some of the dude-warriors, in a scene that absolutely made Cara and me tear up a little. Solidarity ftw!!!

Meanwhile, Nawi and the other captives end up in Slaveport Town, awaiting sale. A bold escape attempt fails, leaving Izogie dead. (Nooooo—and she just got her broken arm set! Cannot catch a break!) Malik swoops in and buys Nawi before the white folks can summarily execute her. He stashes her in his hotel room and offers to get her safely out of Slaveport Town, and oh my gosh, look at the time, we’d better be checking back in with Nanisca!

Nanisca & Co. take Slaveport Town by storm. In short order they…

Malik also releases some enslaved people, allowing them to satisfyingly tear Santo limb from limb, because sometimes friends-slash-unacknowledged-half-brothers just grow apart. Malik himself escapes, in case we care.

Nawi busts out of the hotel just in time to help Nanisca take down Oba. Mother and daughter reunite, and the Agojie return home to mourn their dead and reaffirm their bonds.

Ghezo goes ahead and crowns Nanisca as the Woman King, signaling that he’ll enact her antislavery policy plan: “We joined [the Europeans] in becoming our own oppressor. But no more.” Everybody dances, including Nanisca and Nawi, liberated from demons both abstract and literal.

Plot, pacing, and structure: 3. We realllllllly would’ve been fine without that double-twist of parentage reveals for Nawi. And I’ve already mentioned where I stand on the Nawi/Malik subplot. But overall, there’s a solid balance of action, intrigue, and character-building.

Characters: 3. I wasn’t particularly fond of any of the characters except Izogie, but they had at least as much depth as the characters in a typical war movie with white guys. I did very much want a spinoff about the androgynous priest figure who occasionally turns up to roast Shante; they seem like they know all the court secrets.

Historical accuracy: 3. The Agojie were real warriors who fought for Dahomey (in present-day Benin) for centuries. Ghezo was a real king who refused to pay tribute to the Oyo Empire (in present-day Nigeria) in 1823. As better-informed people than I have pointed out, the movie’s depiction of Dahomey’s relationship to the slave trade is oversimplified; Ghezo only scaled back on human trafficking in 1852 (under pressure from the British government… are the irony awards still taking submissions?), and only temporarily. Counterpoint—the costumes are INCREDIBLE, giving us a sense of the vibrancy and richness of Dahomean culture. Ditto the dancing, the funeral rites, and the various ceremonies, which I’m not knowledgeable enough to fact-check but which I love seeing in this Wonder-Bread-dominated film genre.

Themes: 4. I would’ve welcomed a little more acknowledgment that soft-handed fancy-dressing women can be just as worthy of respect as sweaty, muscled, stabby women—but we can’t have it all, can we? There’s plenty of good stuff here: Trauma doesn’t have to define you. Loyalty and trust are your strongest weapons. You do not, in fact, have to do business with the N*zis; you can punch them and/or rip their throats out instead. “You are powerful—more powerful even than you know. Do not give your power away.”

Many thanks to Cara for suggesting this movie and for watching it with me. Submit your own requests any time by replying to the Historical Flicktion email!

*That’s ONE-THIRD the amount of caffeine in a single cup of coffee. YOU try staying awake through a full episode of a classic TV show on that amount of fuel!