Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind’ On Netflix, Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Film About A Boy Who Helped His Village Survive

In 2001, 13-year-old Edward Kamkwamba saved his Malawian village from starving to death by figuring out how to generate electricity via wind power. The story of that near-miracle, which has led to Edward’s fascinating life since, is the subject of The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind, written and directed by Chiwetel Ejiofor. Read on for more on the actor’s first directorial effort…

THE BOY WHO HARNESSED THE WIND: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: In the small village of Wimbe, Malawi in 2001, things have gotten dire for the families there. One growing season, the land is parched to the point where nothing grows, then the rains come and flood the fields. It’s getting to the point where the farmers are selling trees on their property to the government, just to make ends meet, which makes the flooding worse.

Trywell Kamkwamba (Chiwetel Ejiofor) has been hanging in there, trying to farm enough grain to feed his family. He and his wife Agnes (Aïssa Maïga) want a better life for their kids, especially because they’re smart. Agnes wants oldest daughter Annie (Lily Banda) to go to university so she’s not just a wife and mother; they make sure oldest son William (Maxwell Simba) goes to school, as well, knowing how good he is at fixing radios and other complicated things.

But as the drought continues, threatening the grain supply, Trywell can’t afford the fees to keep William in school. But, thanks to William’s science teacher, Mike Kachigunda (Lemogang Tsipa), who happens to be seeing Annie on the sly, and William’s endless curiosity, William studies science textbooks in the library, trying to figure out how to bring water from the village well to the fields, even during dry season. He gets the idea when he sees the generator on Kachigunda’s bike; if it can run the light on the bike, it can charge a battery to power a water pump.

William thinks he can deliver the water to the fields, but Trywell tells him to stop the foolishness and help him tend the field. However. through William’s ingenuity, and despite the hardships his family goes through as the food supply dwindles, he manages to scrounge enough parts to first make an experimental windmill, then the larger one that saves the village.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Despite the African setting, this based-on-real-events film feels more like biopics along the lines of The Imitation Game, where people do amazing things with their creativity and curiosity.

Performance Worth Watching: Given that Ejiofor also wrote and directed this film, his performance is as powerful as anything he’s done. But Simba is a fascinating watch as William, whose out-of-the-box thinking about creating electricity in a village where there aren’t a lot of resources is reflected in the young man’s stoic, confident performance.

Memorable Dialogue: “How much should I lose, Trywell?” Agnes asks her husband after he rejects William’s attempt to build a windmill. “Everywhere I’ve followed you, I’ve lost something.”

Single Best Shot: When William gets his makeshift windmill going, it’s a pretty remarkable shot.

Sex and Skin: Nothing.

Our Take: Taking on the story of a real person is a big challenge for a first time director, and Ejiofor does a good job telling the story of William Kamkwamba, who ended up going to Dartmouth and still helps his village, where his parents still live. While Ejiofor shows the scope of the drought in Malawi via some gorgeous long shots, his visual style is fairly straightforward; he is more concerned with telling William’s story, and he lays it out well.

All of the performances, including Maïga and Banda as Agnes and Annie, suck you in and show how the Kankawamba family preservers in the face of drought and famine. This is where Ejiofor excels as a storyteller; he’s not afraid to show the hardships William and his family faced and the family duty to the farm that digs at William while he steadfastly figures out how to save his family and village. Also, there are aspects of Malawi’s political situation during the period, where they pretended to be a democracy, but when the chief of the village speaks out against the government at a rally, he’s beaten unconscious by the president’s goons.

Ejiofor is one of the best actors out there right now, but The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind shows that he’s got a pretty bright future as a director and screenwriter.

Our Call: STREAM IT. William Kamkwamba’s story is fascinating, and Ejiofor tells it well in his first directorial effort.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind on Netflix