'The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind': Chiwetel Ejiofor's Directorial Debut Is Endlessly Humanist [Sundance Review]

There’s something marvelous about the way in which some actors transition to directing, and bring to their projects the specific qualities that make them such memorable performers. It’s there in the clipped professionalism of George Clooney’s “Good Night, And Good Luck,” or the way Drew Barrymore’s “Whip It” sparks off her playfulness and energy, or how quiet rage couples with overwhelming humanity in Denzel Washington’s “Fences.” And “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” the feature writing and directing debut of Chiwetel Ejiofor, feels like a similar extension of his onscreen persona: open-hearted, quietly intelligent, endlessly humanist. It also stumbles in some of the ways we’ve come to expect from new directors (though more, in this case, from new screenwriters).

Ejiofor tells the true story of young William Kamkwamba (Maxwell Simba), who lives in rural Malawi with his farming family, headed by father Trywell (Ejiofor). They live off the land, but the land is unreliable, veering wildly from drought to flood, leaving crops either inedibly dry or waterlogged. The family is increasingly unable to pay their bills or even feed themselves; chastised for spending his money gambling, Trywell’s nephew protests, “There’s nothing wrong with gambling. Look at these rains the last few years! We’re all gambling.”

But in William, Trywell sees hope for the future. The boy is preternaturally gifted at science and invention; he fixes radios for his fellow villagers, and Trywell knows that if he can keep his son in school, scholarships and a real future lie ahead. But school fees are exceedingly out of the family’s reach, and there’s little hope for stability – until William cooks up an idea for a windmill-based water irrigation system that would ease the woes of his family and neighbors. If it works.

Ejiofor is very much an actor’s director, and from the picture’s opening stretch, he and his cast nail the warmth and familiarity of the family scenes, from the good-natured ribbing between husband and wife early on to the misery of the hunger streak later in their tale. And he displays a good eye – the film is filled with striking, even haunting, imagery – and skill for staging, particularly in two big, tough sequences (a political rally that turns scary, and a near-riot for desperately needed grain) of big, well-populated events going awry. Managing these kinds of vast crowd scenes isn’t easy; Ejiofor doesn’t seem to break a sweat. And when the picture reaches its climax, the payoff is undeniably inspiring.

As a screenwriter, however, Ejiofor often comes up short. He puts a bit too much on his plate, supplementing William’s journey with the political struggles of the country, the land battles of the area, and the woes of William’s older sister; all of those threads are connected, to be sure, but there’s so much of the main story to tell, the rest are left underdeveloped. And, at a few key points, he can’t quite figure out how to convey information naturally; there’s an exposition dump early on, at a funeral, that’s embarrassingly clumsy, while a fair number of conversations are conveniently overheard, at just the right moment.

Nevertheless, there’s much to recommend in “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.” Those momentary digressions aside, Ejifor is a filmmaker who respects his audience’s intelligence, and assumes their indulgence in matters like language; this isn’t one of those movies where everyone miraculously speaks English. Simba is natural and charismatic, and his resemblance to Ejifor is a nice touch (it’s particularly noticeable when he gets that look of worry and concern that Ejifor does so well). And the director resists the urge to make the family too heroic – in fact, his own character takes an unsympathetic turn near the end, which must’ve been a tough call. But it matters, because it renders his deeply-felt joy and pride at the picture’s conclusion all the more potent. [B]

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