THE NO 1 LADIES’ DETECTIVE AGENCY
UK, 2008, 100 minutes, Colour.
Jill Scott, Lucien Msamati, Anika Noni Rose, Idris Alba, Colin Salmon, David Oyelowo.
Directed by Anthony Mingella.
The Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency is based on very popular novels by Alexandra Mc Call Smith. This was a pilot for a series to be produced by the BBC. It was written by Richard Curtis, best known for television shows like Blackadder as well as The Vicar of Dibley and films like Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually. The direction was by Anthony Mingella, Oscar winner for The English Patient and such films as Truly, Madly, Deeply and The Talented Mr Ripley. This was to be his last film.
The setting is Botswana and the film was made on location. The film-makers intended it to be a positive look at African life as a contrast with the suffering from AIDS as well as political corruption. The film offers a rather genteel portrait of Africa – but not without crime.
American actress-singer Jill Scott portrays Precious Ramotswe, a woman who inherits her father’s cows and money and sets up an agency, the first of its kind in southern Africa. She employs an assistant called Grace, played by Anika Noni Rose, very effectively for an American actress who has won a Broadway Tony for a musical and appeared in Dream Girls. A good supporting British cast including Colin Salmon and David Oyelowo appear.
The film has many strands and shows, casually, her solving several cases including an unfaithful husband (who takes a shine to Precious herself), insurance fraud, missing children and an idle father. The film is moving and funny.
1.A pleasing telemovie? Pilot for a series?
2.The Botswana settings, the African countryside, the town – sunny and more peaceful than many disturbing images of contemporary Africa? The musical score and its mood?
3.The focus on Precious, her time with her father, his teaching her to be observant, her relationship with him and her sadness at his death? The funeral experience? Her decision to follow his good advice? Taking her inheritance, going to the capital, buying the property, turning it into the detective agency? Her ambitions? Notwithstanding her lack of experience? Her advertising for an assistant? Grace and her arrival, her reactions? Her being employed?
4.The men helping Precious? Their liking for her, support? Her car? The building? Her good friends and their continuing to help?
5.Grace, managing the office, businesslike, making notes, keeping files, commenting about the lack of money coming in?
6.The people coming to consult her? Wanting to buy stamps? The casual inquiries? The woman suspicious of her husband? The search for the little child? The woman who thought the man who claimed to be her father was a fraud …?
7.The slow pace of the film, African style? The various strands for the detective work? Precious’ own life?
8.Her investigation of the cases? Her going to the club, meeting the husband with the wandering eye, the flirtation, going to his house, the photo taken? The wife and her bringing it back? Her not wanting to believe her husband, condemning Precious?
9.Her dealing with the old man and his fraud, wanting to give blood, urging him to come to the hospital – and his confession?
10.The mother, the disappearing child, the father, the missing finger? The pathos in this case?
11.Bringing all the strands together? Detective stories? Precious as a character? Grace as her sidekick? The various men and their support? An entertaining and pleasing detective story?
