Told from the point of view of an adolescent girl whose parents are active in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa in the 1960s. She's left in the dark about her parents' activities, as is the viewer, mostly. The performances are good and the depiction of whites during this time ranges from sympathetic and helpful to willful ignorance to outright hostility. Still, the story is mostly Molly's. While there's nothing wrong with this, it's still a mostly white point of view of apartheid.
Spoiler ahead:
There is a character who is killed, and while it is intended to be a cathartic final moment, the viewer, like Molly, is very much apart from the event, not in it. There's something rather willfully ignorant about filming an anti-apartheid movie from a white point of view. I know that there were whites helping during this time period, but all of the whites in this movie are so sanctimonious and the blacks so saintly and good, that I found the movie rather hard to take.
Spoiler ahead:
There is a character who is killed, and while it is intended to be a cathartic final moment, the viewer, like Molly, is very much apart from the event, not in it. There's something rather willfully ignorant about filming an anti-apartheid movie from a white point of view. I know that there were whites helping during this time period, but all of the whites in this movie are so sanctimonious and the blacks so saintly and good, that I found the movie rather hard to take.