MIFF Session 18: QUEEN OF GLORY

Sarah is getting through her PhD in Oncology and excited to move states to Ohio with her married lover when her mother dies, leaving her a Christian bookshop and a house. She has to organise the "white people's" funeral and then the Ghanaian one before she can uproot and leave and some of this is proving difficult. Harder still, she goes to the bookshop to look around before listing it on the market and meets the mountain-sized and face tattooed ex con her mother hired to help out. It's just easier to keep the shop open until everyone has paid their respects and the mourning is over. Her estranged father arrives from Ghana and moves into the house until the funeral is done. They have one of the subtlest awkward hugs I've seen.

Subtly awkward is a good description for this whole film, actually. Comedian, writer and director (and star) Nana Mensah takes us through her observational  tale at a gentle pace, allowing all of her characters breathing space where even those with few lines (like her father) can develop until they feel lived in. Sarah's struggle with her circumstances, including the increasingly hopeless plans of moving away, are played quietly but that is not to say they are under-attended: she has clear trouble coping with both the intimacy she craves from her closest and the demands of her extended family and cultural community which she fears might consume her. She'd rather be American as it's easier but easier starts looking shallower.

To call this film warm might also undersell it but its determination to make its viewers feel welcome inside it is unmistakable and never cloying. Warm might also not account for the constantly funny observation gags that leave a treat in almost every scene: this is a very funny film but it's also a very personable one. It reminded me in tone of Smoke or one of those gentle reconciliation movies from the '60s that I'd see on tv of an afternoon off Uni back in the '80s. The control and assurance to produce moods like this is massive as is the talent to make it appear easy. The scene where Sarah can do nothing but finally accept her mother's death is told largely in one long closeup as she is dancing at the Ghanaian funeral and the wisdom of playing it warm rather than quirky is obvious as it means there is less of a reach between the comedy and the poignancy so when the latter happens it feels all the more powerful. That is the way of this film and it is a joy because of it.