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Invictus Our rating: Your rating: 1 2 3 4 Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: PG-13 (brief, strong language) Genre: Drama Theater release: December 11, 2009 by Warner Bros. Pictures Directed by: Clint Eastwood Runtime: 2 hours 13 minutes Cast: Morgan Freeman (Nelson Mandela), Matt Damon (Francois Pienaar), Tony Kgoroge, (Jason Tshabalala) Julian Lewis Jones (Etienne Feyder), Adjoa Andoh (Brenda Mazibuko), Marguerite Wheatley (Nerine), Patrick Lyster (Mr. Pienaar) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

This is the final stanza of "Invictus," written by Victorian poet William Ernest Henley after having his tubercular foot amputated. The word invictus is Latin for "unconquered," and in this poem Henley defies the difficult circumstances of his life to conquer him.

A century later, inside a South African prison, Nelson Mandela would take consolation from this poem. And so, from director Clint Eastwood, we get the film Invictus, which tells the story of how Mandela (Morgan Freeman) used the 1995 Rugby World Cup to unite and inspire a post-apartheid South Africa. Mandela was coming off 27 years of imprisonment for his activism against apartheid, having been released in 1990 and then, in 1994, through South Africa's first-ever multi-racial democratic elections, elected as president. It was the end, at last, of apartheid.

Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela

But the nation remained deeply divided. Many whites resented and feared this loss of power, and many blacks couldn't just shrug off those decades of disenfranchisement. As Invictus shows, one emblem for this division is the South African national rugby team, known as the Springboks. The team had been all-white for many years, and in the run-up to the 1995 World Cup had only one non-white player. Consequently, many black South Africans—an imprisoned Mandela included—would cheer for opposing teams during international matches.

Once Mandela becomes president, however, his top priority is reconciliation. For this he sees an opportunity in the Springboks. The 1995 World Cup was going to be hosted by South Africa, and Mandela wants his country—all of it—to get behind their national team.

The casting of Freeman as Mandela seems fated. Freeman would say it was. At a press conference for his 1994 autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela was asked who should portray him in a film adaptation. The answer: Freeman. "From then on, it's like okay, so Morgan Freeman is going to be Mandela somewhere down the line," Freeman tells MoviesOnline; he has been preparing for the role ever since. "Whenever we were in proximity," he says, "like a city away, for instance, I would know about it and I would go to him and have lunch, have dinner, or sit with him . . . and during that time, I would sit and hold Madiba's [Mandela's clan name] hand." This was Freeman's way of learning how to become Mandela. Freeman is also the one, in fact, who acquired the film rights for Invictus—it's based on the non-fiction account Playing the Enemy by John Carlin—and Freeman was the first actor cast.

Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar

And yes, Mandela had it right.

Now, you never completely forget you are watching Morgan Freeman. The physical resemblance is striking, and Freeman is fantastic in assuming Mandela's posture and walk and accent (to my American ear). Yet—like most established actors—we know Freeman too well, and the match between actor and character feels so right that it almost draws more attention to itself. Still, hey, it's Freeman: he carries with him all the sophistication, patience, sly wit, and dignity that we expect to see in Mandela.

There is also, however, Mandela's loneliness: this is a man separated from his wife. And then the fatigue: this is a newly elected president in his seventies, with 27 years of hard jail time behind him. Both of these are captured in a simple shot early in the film, when Mandela stoops his way out of bed first thing in the morning, turns, and softly flips the covers up back over the empty sheets. In that quiet moment, how strange it is to know this man is steering a nation.

When Mandela begins to take an interest in the Springboks, he invites team captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon) to join him for tea. (Incidentally, can you think of a more likeable acting tandem than Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon?) To prepare for this role, Damon met with the real Pienaar to get to know him and the intricacies of rugby; he also worked out like mad, shedding the flabbiness he built up for his recent turn in The Informant! He is physically convincing as a rugby player, but his character doesn't have enough depth to make him much more than an agreeable rugby star.

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