The White King 2016

In a dystopian realm called Homeland, Djata, Lorenzo Allchurch, is a 12-year-old who grows up under a ruthless dictatorship that keeps the outside world far from his door. His father, Peter, Ross Partridge, explains the regime’s harsh truth and speaks of a fabled treasure guarded by Pickaxe, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson. When two government agents seize Peter, Djata’s family is branded traitors by the state and by many neighbors, forcing them to confront the regime’s iron grip and the peril it creates for their lives, with Hannah, Agyness Deyn standing beside him as his mother and protector.

On Djata’s birthday, he visits his paternal grandparents, who remain loyal to the regime. The grandfather places a gun in Djata’s hands and orders him to shoot a cat, pressing him to prove his loyalty. Djata hesitates, and the grandmother pushes him to comply. That night, the grandfather gives him a medal his father won as a boy for being a skilled shooter. Returning home, Djata’s mother prepares a birthday cake, but she notices the medal and scolds him for accepting a gift that embodies the grandparents’ brainwashing. The moment foreshadows the tug-of-war between affection, obedience, and the truth that his family is trying to uncover.

The next day, Djata and his friends play football with the ball his father gave him when two bullies known as “the twins,” Romulus and Remus, swoop in to seize candy and take the ball. Later at the market, Djata and his mother are turned away, blacklisted by a regime that defines them as enemies. A dead bird carries a note inviting Djata to a fight, sent by the same bullies. In the ensuing confrontation, Djata infiltrates the twins’ base, is briefly restrained, and, refusing to surrender, breaks free and escapes with his football.

Back home, his mother searches for any possible way to locate his missing father. They ask his in-laws for help, but they are refused. They then visit the local General, General Meade, who is revealed in the course of their encounter to be a complicated figure: he attempts to pressure them out and, in a tense moment, Djata encounters a female android playing chess, a nod to the film’s opening image of Djata and his father playing chess. The General’s influence is chilling—he leaves them with a warning that Djata’s father’s fate could mirror his own. When they return home, Hannah continues to improvise, selling what she can to fund a potential rescue, while Djata reassures her that everything will be all right.

Driven by a mix of courage and stubborn hope, Djata and his best friend set out to locate the treasure his father spoke of. They reach a dark cave, only to find it empty of riches—scattered bones, debris, and the bones of failed promises. The adventure turns perilous when his friend pushes Djata into a pit. There, Pickaxe, the enigmatic guardian he heard about, reveals himself and explains that the government uses him to guard their secrets. Before sending Djata home, Pickaxe asks what Djata is willing to sacrifice to reclaim his father; he shows Djata that he himself has no eyes, a stark symbol of the regime’s erasure of human sight and choice, and then offers a quiet, poignant farewell.

As Djata returns, his grandfather’s anxious fear returns to the surface, and a panic-stricken ride home begins. Colonel Fitz, Jonathan Pryce, pulls Djata over and confesses that his own life has been spent trying to find Djata’s father, not for glory, but for a better life for the boy. He admits his deep discontent with the cruelty of Homeland, urging Djata and his mother to escape. The Colonel’s revelation offers a glimmer of possibility, but the moment is cut short when he collapses and dies from a heart attack, leaving Djata to face a fractured path forward.

The funeral becomes a stark reaffirmation of the regime’s control. Djata and his mother are denied seats at the front of the hall, and as Djata’s grandmother delivers the eulogy, his father is ushered in, shackled and broken, to a chorus of frightened faces. Djata and his mother rush to him, but guards drag the father away despite their desperate pleas. Hannah’s anger erupts, and Djata seizes a stick, chasing the procession as his mother pedals behind him on a bicycle. The chase culminates in a heartbreaking, unresolved pursuit as the truck carrying his father disappears into the distance, leaving Djata and his mother to confront an uncertain, hopeful, dangerous road ahead. The final image lingers on their determined, unspoken bond as they follow the convoy into an impossible future.