“The Woman King” wants to be two things at once: a historical epic about an all-female army of warriors, and a personal story about a mother and daughter separated by war. The film leans harder into the personal drama than the battlefield spectacle, and that decision pays off more often than it fails.
Viola Davis plays Nanisca, the general of the Agojie, a real unit of female soldiers who defended the West African Kingdom of Dahomey in the 1800s. The film is set in 1823, and it opens with Nanisca freeing Dahomean women who were abducted by slavers from the Oyo Empire. That act provokes King Ghezo of Dahomey to prepare for war with the Oyo, and Nanisca spends the rest of the film training a new generation of recruits, including Nawi, played by Thuso Mbedu.
Trailer, via Sony Pictures Entertainment.
The Core of Nanisca and Nawi
The heart of the film is the relationship between Nanisca and Nawi. Nawi is a strong-willed girl who was offered to the king by her father when she refused to marry men who would beat her. She befriends Izogie, a veteran Agojie played by Lashana Lynch, and later learns that Nanisca is her biological mother. Nanisca reveals that she was captured, raped and impregnated by Oba, the leader of the Oyo, and that she embedded a shark tooth in her daughter’s left shoulder before giving her away.
Nawi finds the tooth, and the film confirms the bond between the two women. The discovery is a quiet moment, and it lands harder than any of the film’s louder action sequences.
The War Against the Oyo
The conflict with the Oyo is the engine of the film’s second half. Portuguese slave traders led by Santo Ferreira, played by Hero Fiennes Tiffin, and accompanied by the half-Dahomean Malik, arrive as part of an alliance with the Oyo. Nawi encounters Malik while he is bathing, and the two become friends. When Nawi graduates from training, she sneaks off to speak with Malik and learns that the Oyo are planning to attack. She reports this to Nanisca, who tells her off for her recklessness.
The attack on the Oyo is successful, but Oba escapes and Nawi, Fumbe and Izogie are captured. With Nawi’s advice, Fumbe escapes and reports the others’ fate to Nanisca. The film sets up a rescue mission that never fully arrives, leaving the story’s final arc unfinished.
The Cast Carries the Weight
Davis gives a commanding performance as Nanisca, a woman who has spent her life fighting and now faces the hardest fight of all: protecting the people she loves while doing the job she was trained for. Mbedu matches her, playing Nawi with strength and vulnerability in equal measure. The two actors share a chemistry that anchors the film’s central tension.
Lynch and Sheila Atim round out the Agojie leadership, and John Boyega plays King Ghezo with a presence that commands the screen. The supporting cast, including Jimmy Odukoya as Oba Ade and Jayme Lawson as Shante, fills out the world without stealing focus from the main story.
The Historical Context
The Agojie were real. They existed from the 17th century until the end of the kingdom in 1894, and they were considered formally married to the king, which made them celibate. Some Agojie became pregnant through consensual sex or rape, as the film depicts, and some married and had children after their service.
The film takes creative liberties with its characters. Nanisca’s name was likely inspired by an Agojie teenage recruit of the same name, whose fierce execution of a prisoner was recorded by a French naval officer in 1889. Nawi was named after the last surviving Agojie warrior to have combat experience, who died in 1979. Hero Fiennes Tiffin’s Santo Ferreira may be loosely inspired by Francisco Félix de Sousa, a Brazilian slave trader who was an ally of Ghezo and became an important figure in the Dahomey slave trade.
The film’s romance subplot between Nawi and Malik, played by Jordan Bolger, is a stretch. Agojie warriors were considered married to the king, which made them celibate. Kevin Lang of History vs. Hollywood argued that this makes the film’s romantic thread implausible.
The Technical Craft
The film was shot by Polly Morgan, and the musical score was composed by Terence Blanchard. The editing was completed by Terilyn A. Shropshire. The production began in South Africa in November 2021, shut down due to the COVID-19 Omicron variant a few weeks later, and resumed in early 2022.
The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2022, and Sony Pictures Releasing released it in theaters in the United States on September 16, 2022. It runs 135 minutes.
What Works and What Doesn’t
The film’s biggest weakness is its pacing. The first hour is slow, building character and backstory at the expense of momentum. The second half picks up, but the rescue mission that would resolve the plot never fully arrives, leaving the story feeling unresolved.
The action sequences are competent but not spectacular. The film is more interested in the emotional stakes than the physical ones, and that can feel like a deliberate choice rather than a failure. The quieter scenes between Nanisca and Nawi are the film’s strongest moments.
Key Facts Box
– Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood
– Writers: Dana Stevens, Maria Bello
– Runtime: 135 minutes
– Release date: September 16, 2022
– Score: 7.6/10
“The Woman King” is a film about mothers and daughters, about duty and legacy, and about the cost of being the one who protects everyone else. It is not a perfect film, and its ending leaves threads untied, but the performances and the emotional core are strong enough to justify the trip to the theater.
The film earns a 7.6/10.
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