Queen of Glory (Mensah, 2022)

Nana Mensah’s Queen of Glory combines elements of three familiar stories: the immigrant experience, the grief experience, and the anthropological look at a religious community. Mensah plays Sarah Obeng, a Ghanian-American doctoral student who inherits a Christian bookstore when her mother passes away.

Stories about reverse culture shock are a staple of the immigration genre. “Reverse” culture shock is when an immigrant or traveler, now adjusted to his or her new home, temporarily or permanently returns a former culture, only to realize that he or she is no longer comfortable there. V.S. Naipul’s “One Out of Many,” is a consummate example, though there are elements scattered across almost any story of dislocation and relocation.

“I’m not very good at being my mother,” Sarah says late in the film, and what makes Queen of Glory interesting to me is that it is not at all clear if she means Ghanian-American, Christian, both, or something else. The film is not Christian in any sort of American film genre sort of way, but honestly, that is what makes it refreshing. By having a character who is ambivalent to the religious community she minds herself in, Queen of Glory allows the audience to look at it somewhat dispassionately as well.

There are additional class-conscious undertones to the script that are typically absent from commercial studio films about religion. Sarah has gone to an Ivy League school to pursue her degree, but then she plans to move away from professionally advancing plans to be with a love-interest. This backstory makes the reasons for Sarah’s tension with her mother a bit more nuanced and, hence, more poignant. In a lesser movie, the cards would be stacked heavily in favor of one side or another. Sarah wouldn’t be hardened to anything the old way has to offer and humbled by what she reluctantly finds. Or the expectations that she follow in her mother’s path would be more overtly domineering and unfair.

Queen of Glory is a film about small changes. It’s quiet and thoughtful, but its emotions are genuine. It is the kind of film that Film Movement has been finding and quietly pushing for 20 years. Here’s hoping that label keeps chugging along, and that Mensah is able to build her reputation through this work so that we see more of her in the years to come.