IMDb plot summary: In 20th-century colonial Kenya, a Danish baroness/plantation owner has a passionate love affair with a free-spirited big-game hunter.
Directed by Sydney Pollack. Starring Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Klaus Maria Brandauer, and Michael Kitchen.
I just recently read the book this was based on and found it a little startling how very, very little of Africa comes through here in the film, compared to the book. The film is a romance, focused heavily on Karen and Denys' relationship, with the setting functioning as a common interest between the two of them. But it doesn't build that common interest with the viewer. Nearly everyone and everything coming FROM Africa is passed by to focus on the European transplants, and I found myself dearly missing that part of the narrative. It barely even needed to be Africa for the filmed version of this story -- they took so much of its core out, it could have been Australia or Canada or Poland or the American West. And for a story with Africa *in* the title, that seems like an oversight. All that being said, it's a fine story. Meryl Streep is good as always, and Robert Redford is charming. It just feels like a missed opportunity.
How it entered my Flickchart:
Out of Africa < Letters from Iwo Jima
Out of Africa > As Good As It Gets
Out of Africa > The Rescuers Down Under
Out of Africa > Dr. Seuss on the Loose
Out of Africa > Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Out of Africa < Waterloo
Out of Africa > Trumbo
Out of Africa > Ice Princess
Out of Africa < Waxwork
Out of Africa < Vanya on 42nd Street
Out of Africa < Melinda and Melinda
Out of Africa > Son of Rambow
Final spot: #1691 out of 3259, or 48%.
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