Winnie

The trailer has just dropped yet people are already complaining about it. The general consensus of the epic film about Winnie Mandela is that the accents are off, Jennifer Hudson and Terrance Howard are miscast and the make up is awful. I concur that Jennifer's make up at the latter stage is terrible. The accent may or may not be bad but I am not an expert on South African dialects so cannot vouch for Jennifer and Terence's voices. However, what I can say is that my first impressions of Winnie was that it was compelling, moving and intense and I was drawn in within the first few seconds. Jennifer and Terrence are the perfect pair to play the iconic Winnie and Nelson Mandela - they are both great actors and sort of resemble the couple. I have always been facinated by Winnie Mandela, her story and what drove her during the years of her marriage to Nelson and after their split. Now after the much told story of Nelson Mandela it is about time that we got to hear Winnie's side of the story. The film is directed by Darrell Roodt who brought us Sarafina and has a wonderful feel to it.

We have not seen Jennifer do anything significant since Dreamgirls which brought her the Oscar along with many other top awards well unless you count Sex and the City and The Secret Life of Bees, so it is great to have her back on the big screen. Terrence is an amazing actor who possess that rare fomr of screen presence, I first noticed him in The Best Man where he stole the film but he blew me away in Crash. He has a great body of work which came to fruition when he did Hustle and Flow which earned him an Oscar nomination and hopefully he will get his props in this role.

Winnie is set to be released early next year possibly at the Sundance Film Festival.

Check out an interview with Jennifer Hudson below where she talks about working on the film and her opinion on Winnie Mandela herself demanding a final say on the script.