Sheila Agnew McCoy Unlike some of my friends, I had not read the book prior to seeing the movie. In a Facebook discussion, Half of a Yellow Sun got excellent reviews on both the book and the movie, so I decided to check the movie out. I deeply appreciated seeing a movie with an emotional bond between two sisters who were connected in so many ways, but disconnected by romance and political views. Perhaps more intriguing were the circumstances that tore them apart, brought them together again. The movie actors were superb and each character was perfectly cast for their roles. I only wish movies like this would reach more people. It tells a story that is and was real about power, war and political unrest in Africa. I plan on reading the book as well.

rogerdarlington It is a shame that this film is not much better known: it is a rarity for a British movie to have an African theme, African location shooting, source material from a black novelist, a black writer and director, and an almost exclusively black cast. But it is a pity that the film is not as successful as it could have been: too much of the work is sluggish and the script is often too leaden.The title is a reference to the flag of Biafra, the breakaway Igbo-dominated province that provoked the Nigerian civil war of 1967-1970, and the action is set in the decade following Nigeria's independence in 1960 and is seen through the eyes of Biafran characters who are struggling with their own relationship difficulties. The film is based on the novel of the same name by the Igbo Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and the writer and first-time director is the Nigerian-born, London-based Biyi Bandele who was born to Yoruba parents but grew up in the northern part of the country in the Hausa cultural tradition. Both novelist and director deserve recognition for focusing on a period of Nigerian history that still shapes the nation but is rarely in the public discourse and Bandele was right to insist on making the movie in Nigeria itself in spite of the difficulties.The two leading actors - both of whom give excellent performances in spite of a poor script - are Chiwetel Ejiofor ("12 Years A Slave", who was born in Britain to Nigerian parents, and Thandie Newton ("Mission: Impossible II"), who was born in Britain to a black Zimbabwean mother and a white British father. Both are real talents who alone would make this film worth watching.

Dany O I beg to disagree with many of the other (negative) reviews. I believe that the movie communicated the right intensity. It's not about the book, it's about a story needing to be told. I'm a Nigerian who is closely intimidated with the war and the true story, and this film did enough to express the reality of it on many levels. I especially appreciated the live footage. I've been reading memoirs from a variety of ethnicities who were involved in the war, and this movie shows a story that is consistent with all of their stories. It's only one perspective, and fictional at that. I would recommend this movie to anyone and everyone interested in Nigerian history and heritage.

DollarSterling Half of a Yellow Sun is a fantastic novel, so any adaptation was going to be very difficult. Adapting a great book should be approached with care and most successful adaptations have focused on one or two key events or characters rather than try to retell the whole story. In this case, the adaptation attempted to tell the whole story and, subsequently, manages to avoid any depth as it simply skims along the surface in order to get the end. Often, scenes which serve no point other than to relay a piece of background information continually appear and it is shocking that such experienced film makers failed to guide the writer/director away from such obvious pitfalls. In order to accommodate as many details as possible from the novel, many superfluous scenes lead only to confusion and rely on the audience either having read the novel or having in-depth knowledge of Nigeria's history. Some characters appear only to serve as expositional devices. This film has one or two excellent performances DESPITE the material but generally the actors appear to be at a loss as to what to do. This is the director's first movie and it could that he wasn't comfortable with the pressures of time and of shooting out of sequence. It is sad to be so 'down' on a movie that has its heart in the right place, and one can only imagine that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie must rue the day that she allowed her beautiful work to be adapted by someone who had little or no grasp of the screen writing process that could have turned out a great film script.