Thursday, July 18 was Nelson Mandela’s 95th birthday, and though he’s recently suffered a serious health scare, the former president of South Africa is still with us. It also seems the right day for the Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom trailer, which features Idris Elba playing him.
Promising to unspool the story of the man behind the leader we know today, **Walk **delves into his radical activist past, his frustration with the way South Africa was governed, the crippling apartheid and his own desire to simply see his children live in freedom.
Elba has a tough job here – Nelson Mandela is one of the most recognisable figures in the world, and while much of the film appears to take place at a time when the wider world wasn’t awash in news coverage about the man as in his later years, audience preconceptions are inevitable and will need overcoming.
Justin Chadwick directed this one, and the cast also features Naomi Harris, Gys de Villiers, Robert Hobbs and Theo Landey. It will arrive here on January 3 next year.