An interesting true-life story about a Kenyan in his 80s who insists on his right to education has become a somewhat sappy and unsubtle film
A true story from Kenya has unfortunately become a slightly hackneyed and insipid feelgood movie. In 2004, Kimani N'gan'ga Maruge, here played by Tony Kgoroge, was an 84-year-old man who had never gone to school; he responded to the government's announcement of free universal education by calmly presenting himself at a primary school and demanding to enroll. He even had an adult-sized uniform with big baggy shorts. Maruge was to get himself an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest primary school pupil. Yet Justin Chadwick's movie shows old wounds being reopened. Maruge is a former Mau Mau fighter, tortured by the British in the 1950s. Government administrators and politicians are nervous of these memories being reawakened; they are suspicious of Maruge's star status with the international press, and Maruge, for his part, is suspicious that these complacent politicians have tribal links with those collaborators who sided with the British in the bad old days. It's a complex scenario, but this movie winds up telling a straightforward, and slightly sucrose, heartwarming tale.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jun/23/the-first-grader-film-review
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