I Dreamed of Africa

I Dreamed of Africa (2000) is the tale of a self-righteous, self-appointed white savioress. The movie opens with the subtitle “A True Story” and closes with a caption claiming that Kuki Gallmann (Kim Basinger) “became a writer and internationally respected conservationist.” An internationally respected conservationist who doesn’t know that “sucking out” the venom of a snake does more harm than good. Here’s a film that’s equal parts ignorance, arrogance, and hypocrisy.

The first act is devoted to Paolo Gallmann’s (Vincent Perez) bizarre courtship of Kuki. They’re both survivors of a car crash that claimed the lives of a bunch of other people who are of no consequence at all. “For a while, I couldn’t remember who else was in the car,” says Paolo. Neither could, for that matter, writers Paula Milne and Susan Shiliday.
Paolo bonds with Kuki and her seven-year-old son Emanuele (Liam Aiken) during and after her recovery from a broken leg. You could cut the sexual tension between Basinger and Perez with a knife — if only there were any.

There is no chemistry, no friction, no sparks, no nothing, but that doesn’t stop the characters from getting married and moving to Kenya. Whatever this relationship lacks in characterization, the script makes up for in exposition-heavy voice-over narration. The film was based on an autobiographical novel of the same name, and Basinger sounds like she’s reading entire passages verbatim.

This stuff, which with a little fleshing out might have been a movie in its own right, has no bearing on the plot. The whole first act should just be backstory. Sure, the accident is the reason that Kuki marries Paolo, and the marriage is the reason that she goes to Africa, but there’s no reason why the film shouldn’t begin and take place entirely in Africa. When Kuki tells us, “I’m divorced, raising a child on my own. I feel a terrible sense of failure … I know this is a chance to find meaning in my life, to give it value,” etc., it makes no d...