Story
Queen of Katwe is based on a true story about a young girl, Phiona Matesi (Madina Nalwanga), who comes from the slums of Kampala in Uganda. She lives an impoverished life with her widowed mother, Harriet (Lupita Nyong’o), her older sister, Night (Taryn Kyaze), and her two brothers, Brian (Martin Kabanza) and Richard (Ivan Jacobo).
Phiona helps her mother sell vegetables every day at the market. One day she follows her brother Brian to the Sports Ministry Outreach Church, where she watches him and several other children learning to play chess. Their teacher is Robert Katende (David Oyelowo), a former footballer and engineer, who has taken a position as a sports missionary to help these disadvantaged children.
Robert invites Phiona in to play chess. Robert soon realises that Phiona is a chess prodigy and encourages her to enter tournaments, against her mother’s judgment. She goes on to be a successful chess player, winning the Ugandan Women’s Junior Championship when she’s only 11. She also wins Africa’s International Children’s Chess Tournament in 2009 with teammates Ivan (Ronald Ssemaganda) and Benjamin (Ethan Nazario Lubega). She’s able to return to school with much support from the Church.
Themes
Poverty and hardship; prejudice; prostitution; loss of a parent
Violence
Queen of Katwe has some violence. For example:
Sexual references
Queen of Katwe has some sexual references. For example:
- Theo uses Night as a prostitute.
- Night becomes pregnant.
- Phiona is worried that soon the men will start coming after her.
- The landlady tells Harriet to find a ‘sugar daddy’.
Alcohol, drugs and other substances
Queen of Katwe shows some use of substances. For example, some scenes show characters drinking and smoking on the streets.
Nudity and sexual activity
Nothing of concern
Product placement
The following products are displayed or used in Queen of Katwe: Coca-Cola.
Coarse language
Queen of Katwe has some coarse language and name-calling. For example, the children call Phiona a pig.
Ideas to discuss with your children
Queen of Katwe is an uplifting, true story of a young girl from the slums of Uganda who finds her way out by being a champion chess player. Her coach, Robert, is also an inspirational character who gives up his engineering career to help underprivileged children.
This is a delightful story, but the movie presents the reality of life in the slums in an intense way. Therefore, we don’t recommend this movie for children under 8 years, and we do recommend parental guidance for children aged 8-13 years.
The main messages from this movie are that:
- you can achieve your goals if you keep trying
- we should all help people in need.
Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include perseverance, loyalty, compassion, selflessness and hope. You might also like to talk about the way that people treat the children from the slums, and whether this happens in Australia.