The premise: Invictus, Clint Eastwood’s adaptation of John Carlin’s book, “Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation”, is set in post apartheid South Africa shortly after Mandela (Morgan Freeman) assumes the presidency, as the country prepares to host the 1995 Rugby World Cup tournament.
The play: Mandela sees rugby as a game that could go along way to uniting the tense and fractured new nation, more so a win in the World Cup. He begins to take a personal interest in the game, the Springboks, and goes onto befriend captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon).
The wrap: despite being heavy on emotion, tension, and drama, ingredients which work well during the World Cup final play, but not always at other times, Invictus is, by way of Mandala’s “we must become the change we want to see in the world” philosophy, an uplifting story of the early days of the new South Africa.
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