Actors Idris Elba and Naomie Harris shine in the film Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom. If you?re looking for a movie to see during the long Thanksgiving weekend, this one should top your list. Learning about the life of the courageous, charismatic African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela is a magnificent journey in this film by director Justin Chadwick, and Elba and Harris nailed it as Nelson and Winnie Mandela.
The story takes the audience through Mandela’s days as a young lawyer and anti-apartheid activist to his 27-year stay as a prisoner on Robben Island to his release and eventual victory as president of South Africa. ?
According to a NY Times piece written by Stephen Holden, ?Mr. Elba?s towering performance lends ?Long Walk to Freedom? a Shakespearean breadth. His Mandela is an intensely emotional man whose body quakes in moments of sorrow and whose face is stricken with a bone-deep anguish. The carefully chosen words in his eloquent declarations of principle, spoken with gravity and deliberation, are deeply stirring.?
Harris, for her part, is regal, lovely and feisty as Winnie Mandela. She burns with pride and strength as her husband is repeatedly thrown in jail and becomes an activist in her own right.
Can you say Oscar buzz?
Read more at the NY Daily News.?
