Chiwetel Ejiofor Makes A Promising Foray Into Directing With The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

It's easy to see a cookie-cutter version of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, a feature-film adaptation of the true story of William Kamkwamba. It'd be a film told from the perspective of a white American named Bill Johnson (played by Jai Courtney, in his big Oscar glory turn), who comes to the African village of Wimbe thinking black people are inferior. But when he befriends a young inventor named William Kamkwamba who has an unlikely but bold plan to help save his village, well, o'l Bill Johnson is about to learn a heartwarming lesson that people of color are actually human beings. It'd be a cringe-inducing exercise that would nonetheless earn loads of money and the Academy Awards would line up all the Oscars for it all while actually ignoring movies made and about people of color.


Thankfully, Chiwetel Ejiofor, in his feature film writing and directing debut, goes in a far more interesting and tonally bleak direction for The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, which tells the tale of William Kamkwamba (here played by Maxwell Simba), who lives in the village of Wimbe with his family, including his father Trywell (Chiwetel Ejiofor). William's parents try to give their son every opportunity to expand his educational horizons even as their village suffers every problem you can imagine, from drought to economic pressures to sell off their land to political upheaval. When William's village is threatened thanks to a lack of water, William has an idea to use his wits to build a windmill that could help provide water to the village.

It's easy to see and joke about how The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind could have been turned into a White Savior narrative, but it's also easy to see how it could have been turned into a more traditional inspirational tale that made the problems and solutions its characters encountered extremely tidy endeavors. But as written by Ejiofor, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind adheres strictly to realizing the plight of William and his neighbors in grim terms, any sense of hope is basically is shoved off to the very last ten minutes of the proceedings. For much of its runtime, this feature isn't afraid to show how many daunting obstacles its characters have to deal with, life is constantly kicking William and his family down no matter how far they've fallen.

It's a choice in terms of tone that might work a touch too well. Honestly, it sometimes feels like the anguish-centric tone and story do come at the expense of exploring the characters in a richer manner. William's mother Agnes (Aissa Maiga), has her turmoil reflected on-camera persistently but her own personality apart from the torment she endures is far less prominent. There's also a last-minute character death that feels perhaps a touch gratuitous in the context of a standalone film, though I will admit that that could just be an aspect of the real-world they were stuck with translating into cinematic form. That having been said, hinging so much of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind on the Kamkwamba family's woe does make the eventual climactic experience of triumph feel all the sweeter and it's commendable that Ejiofor's writing takes a realistic approach in examining all the various factors that have gradually led to the villages desolate circumstances rather than opting for just boiling down the source for all of these troubles to a singular antagonist.

I also like how his writing doesn't stop the story dead just to overexplain certain ideas or concepts to audiences who might not be familiar with the culture of the village of Wimbe. The characters in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind have far greater tasks to accomplish than to constantly hold the audience's hand and keeping that in mind that allows the story to feel like an authentic recounting of the lives of human beings rather than having the characters frequently become tour guides of their own world. Ejiofor's direction, like these parts of his writing, is similarly noteworthy. Though debuting on Netflix in all but three countries, Ejiofor's tendency for lovely-looking wide-angle shots makes The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind feel like something that would totally fit right in on the big screen while his sense of shot composition is also laudable.

Ejiofor's performance as the father of William is a nicely nuanced turn too, Ejiofor makes the starting genial personality of his character as affable as can be, he plays Trywell as the kind of stalwart adult figure a child couldn't help but look up to. As the story wears on, and especially in the third act when William's potential windmill plans become public, Ejiofor makes the darker side of this role feel like an organic extension of what we've already seen. Through Ejiofor's acting, you can get the reasoning for why he'd be hesitant to accept his son's new risky plan while also feeling immense sympathy for William that his father, a figure he looked up to for so long, has managed to become someone downright intimidating.

In the lead role of William, Maxwell Simba delivers fine work, especially in regards to capturing how the young William processes all the grown-up turmoil around him. He may not understand everything he's swept up in, but Simba's performance makes it clear he understands the urgency of the situation. Supporting players Aissa Maiga and Lily Banda also bring solid performances to the table even if the characters they're working with are certainly in need of extra layers of depth on a writing level. Under the direction of Chiwetel Ejiofor, the cast overall works wells in the grimly toned atmosphere of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. This is a movie that serves as a commendable directorial debut for Chiwetel Ejiofor by taking a premise that could have been used for disposable cornball cinema and instead makes something a whole lot more interesting in the process.