Karen (Meryl Streep) is determined to do something with her life but the choices offered to her as a wealthy Danish woman of good breeding are 1) get married and 2) ???. So she marries her friend Bror (Klaus Maria Brandauer), a nobleman with no money and moves to Kenya to start a dairy farm. Right away, there are problems because Bror didn't want the responsibility of cattle, so he bought coffee seeds with her money. Coffee seeds that may or may not grow in the altitude and take 4-5 years to produce a decent crop. Karen sets to, determined to succeed, but the advent of WWI disrupts things again. She is viewed with suspicion by the British, dismissed by the patriarchy, and ignored by her husband. Her only solace is friendship with big game hunter Denys Finch-Hatton (Robert Redford) who treats her like a person, not an obligation or a nuisance.
While this is not as bad as it could have been, it centers Karen's white colonialist viewpoint like a bullseye. Between the two films, The Color Purple seems timeless and classic while Out of Africa grows more dated with each passing year. Nobody is clamoring to remake this one.
Redford is breezily charming, as always, and Streep is gonna Streep. It was nice to see Michael Gough in something other than Batman and knowing that was only four years later is wild. Supermodel Iman has a non-speaking role and Bond Girl Maryam d'Abo has one line early in the film.
It's based on a true story of Karen Blixen, who wrote under a male pseudonym as Isak Dineson, if you're interested. The movie is streaming currently on Netflix.
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