The fictional African state of Wakanda becomes a matriarchy in a fervent, yet understandably subdued new Black Panther movie whose exuberant and mournful impulses are at odds with each other. We can also see, almost in real time, a franchise coming to terms with loss at the same as its fictional characters. Chadwick Boseman, who in the previous adventure had played T’Challa, king of Wakanda, died of cancer two years ago at just 43 years old. Now this new film pays a heartfelt and decent tribute to his memory in a drama shaped around this sudden blow, making an honest attempt to shape a superhero film around the subject of grief.
T’Challa’s sister Shuri now has to step up to a quasi-regency role alongside her grief-stricken mother Ramonda, who now becomes queen because T’Challa has suddenly died; here are two typically elegant and charismatic performances from Letitia Wright and Angela Bassett, with Wright’s Shuri now stricken not just with sadness but a new kind of bleak self-knowledge. Despite her renown as a scientist, she could do nothing to prevent or even understand T’Challa’s fatal illness.
