The First Grader Movie Review [Rating:6/10]
Movie Review by Los Angeles
TimesEarly on in “The First Grader,” an ancient man, as hard and lean as his walking stick, strides miles across the coarse Kenyan bush. When he gets to his destination — a rural primary school — the gate is already locked leaving him to stand alone on one side, with everything he wants on the other.
So begins the film based on the life of Kimani Ng’ange’a Maruge, an illiterate 84-year-old Kenyan whose fight to be admitted to the school in 2003 became a Los Angeles Times story and a worldwide sensation. Before it was over, his struggle would alienate neighbors, test teachers, inconvenience politicians, spark violence, trigger a public debate, and ultimately turn him into the poster child for the power of education.
Movie Review by The First Grader
When the government of Kenya in 2000 offered a free primary-school education for all, officials had no way of knowing that an 84-year-old man would apply to join 6-year-olds in a village school. But Maruge, a hobbling octogenarian who in his youth fought the country’s British colonizers, turns up at the school, demanding to learn to read and write.
His story, based on real events, unfolds in the British drama “The First Grader,” directed by Justin Chadwick for the BBC and National Geographic Entertainment. At first, the school’s principal, Jane Obinchu, turns Maruge away, but she relents when he returns wearing a makeshift school uniform.
Movie Review by Daily News
Drama about an octogenarian former revolutionary’s struggles to read. (1:43) PG. At the Beekman and Angelika.
More tough-minded than soft-hearted, this Africa-set drama about past sins and late redemption has unexpected depth. Kimani (Oliver Litando) is an 84-year-old former rebel whose violent actions with the Mau Mau a half-century ago helped move Kenya away from British rule. Nearing the end of his life, he asks an elementary school teacher (Naomie Harris) to help him to read.
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