He Named Me Malala reveals a funny, inspiring heroine caught between cultures

    1 of 2 2 of 2

      A documentary by Davis Guggenheim. Rated PG. Now playing.

      The best thing this eagerly inspirational new documentary has going for it is the famous title character herself. In the film's best scenes, Malala Yousafzai , the teenaged girl who the Taliban famously shot on her schoolbus for promoting girls' education in Pakistan, reveals herself to be much more than the earnestly determined force we know from news reports.

      In one of her more unguarded moments—as in, when she's not addressing the UN, appearing on The Daily Show, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, or meeting Barack Obama—she scrolls through Google images of some of the famous hunks she likes (Brad Pitt, Roger Federer), giggling with a hand covering her mouth when director Davis Guggenheim gently teases her.

      It's a rare glimpse at the charming, naive girl behind the stage-managed press conferences and appearances that have followed her tragedy. She's disarmingly intelligent, funny ("This is the laziest one" she says introducing one of her brothers), and strong, but it's her more vulnerable side that's most affecting here. Malala becomes more real when she reveals she's bombing physics and finds it hard to fit in with her British schoolmates. She's caught between two cultures, and the sad truth is she might never be able to return home, where there's still a death threat.

      The filmmaker also unearths some intriguing characters in her family, too, most notably her father, who named her after a warrior and who overcame stuttering to become a teacher and political activist in the fundamentalist Swat Valley. Her illiterate mother's own story is equally moving.

      Based on the best-selling autobiography, the movie retells many of her memories through expressive, painterly animation. It pieces together not only the personal story of Malala and her family but the rise of the Taliban and the reasons it took hold in her region. What it relies on too much, though, are the nonstop clips from news reports—the more filtered view of the speeches that Malala spends her time doing as an advocate for girls' education around the planet.

      He Named Me Malala feels educational, a bit too polished, and a little too intent on championing its saintly subject. But the unlikely celebrity herself, fearless and beautifully flawed, somehow transcends all that. So if you know a girl who needs inspiring, it's worth grabbing her and introducing her to Malala—both the p.r.-created version and the very real teenager herself.

       

       

       

      Comments