The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019)

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019) Full Recap

It's 2001 in a small farming village in Malawi. It's harvest time and the villagers are out picking the maze, but the stalks are dry and the cobbs are small. Then in the middle of the field, one of the men, John Camwa, suddenly falls to the ground and doesn't get up. Two men run over and carry him out between the stalks.

At the funeral, the priest tells the crowd that no one is responsible for Jon's death. He says Jon farmed this land side by side with his younger brother Triwell ever since the two of them came back from Doha almost 20 years ago. Triwell sits in the crowd and listens and the priest says that now Jon's eldest son has to take over his father's work. Then dancers in huge straw costumes and scary carved masks come out from between the trees and dance around the mourners.

The first part of the story is called Kufasa, which means sewing. Trywell's son, William, is up early at a little table covered in wires and old radios. He takes them apart, cleans them, and puts them back together. The noise wakes Trywell, who sits up in bed and looks over at his son with a tired smile.

Trywell walks out across the empty field with a radio pressed to his ear. Back at the house, William climbs up onto the tin roof to fix something up there while an old man waits down below for the radio he paid William to repair. William keeps promising him it'll be ready soon, but today is a big day. William washes at the well, and on his bed there's a brand new school uniform.

The whole family gathers around him. His father straightens his tie and his mother Agnes and his older sister Annie are there with them. Then they all sit on the ground outside and eat together. Trywell looks at his son in the uniform and you can see how proud he is. William walks off to school with his dog trottting behind him.

And on the way he meets his friend Gilbert who's wearing the exact same new uniform. They tease each other about how sharp they look and about the uniforms being a bit too loose. Room to grow. At the school, the headmaster gives the new students a speech. He says, "This isn't the richest school in the district, but some of their students have done so well that they went on to university." Did those students have two heads?

They worked hard. Simple as that. And he tells them that once the fees are paid in full, they'll get library cards and can take books home. In class, William meets Mr. Kachigunda, who will be his form tutor and his science teacher for the year. The young teacher points out that on the first day of school, the rains have come and he wonders if that's a good sign.

Then the headmaster stops William. He knows his name and he knows something else, too. William's father only paid the first part of the fees. There's no grace period here, he says. Tell your father to pay the rest or you won't be allowed to come to school. William promises his father will pay.

Yes, sir. He'll pay, sir. Near the village, there's a junkyard where the tobacco estate dumps its old machines. William starts spending his time there, digging through the scrap for anything he can use. And one day, he finds an old pump. One day, men from a tobacco company come to the village.

They want to buy the trees on the farmer's land, 2,000 quatcha, a ton. The village chief, Chief Wimbe, stands up. He says the company knows the rains came late this year and came heavy and that there's been flooding. Without money, the village can't build proper defenses, so it relies on the trees.

The only power we have is to say no, he says. But John's son, Jeremiah, stands up and says he'll sign for 2,000. This is madness. William watches it all through the window. Back at home, a man in a red shirt comes in and argues with Triwell for a long time, waving his hand at him.

Triwell just sits there and listens, and he looks worn out. Dark clouds roll over the mountains. William climbs a hill with his dog and from up there he watches men cutting the trees down one by one and loading them onto a truck. William keeps fixing radios with some of the young men in the village and one night a crowd gathers around a radio in the dark and they hear the news from America.

A second plane has hit the South Tower. That same rainy night, William and a friend see something they weren't supposed to see. Mr. Kachigunda is secretly meeting William's sister, Annie. The boys hide behind a wall and they promise each other not to tell anyone. At the junkyard, one of the boys wonders if the teacher helped Annie get her grades for university.

But the answer is simpler. She got good grades because she studied at night back when they still had money for kerosene. So, they go over to Mr. Kachigunda's bicycle and try to take the little lamp off it so William can study at night, too. It won't come off. Take the light. Take it.

But when the pedal turns, the lamp lights up, and William stares at it like he's just seen magic. Then the rain doesn't stop. Day after day, it pours. And at school, the headmaster calls out the names of the students whose fees still haven't been paid. William is one of them. There's no grace period.

The headmaster says if they want to keep studying, they have to go home and bring the money. Out in the fields, the water rushes down the rose and takes the seeds with it. Triwell kneels in the mud, digging with his bare hands, trying to save what he can. Triwell rides into town with William on the back of his bicycle to see an old friend past a warehouse full of grain sacks.

Triwell has some small savings from his business years in Doha, and he wants to use them to buy back the trees on the Cam Quoma land. His friend says the company won't do it. He asks why Jon left the land to his son and not to Triwell who worked so hard on it. Trywell says it was Jon's land to leave to whoever he wanted.

The friend tells William that back in the day people called his father the pope, the most honest man in the market. But then he gives them the bad news. The government sold the extra grain to other countries. The floods have come and the markets are falling after the attack on America.

Forget about the trees, he says. Forget about the savings. When the rain stops and the sun comes back, the whole country is in for a very hard time. And he's right. The rain stops and the sun bakes the ground until it cracks. Trywell goes to Chief Wimbe and asks him to say something when the president comes to Kasungu because there will be journalists and other chiefs there.

Just let them know, he says, that we know what's happening. In the junkyard, William works something out. The old batteries need charging. They need electricity. And with electricity, they could fix the pump and water the fields without ever waiting for the rain again. So, William sneaks back into school.

He skips the assembly and slips into Mr. Kachigunda's science class. After the lesson, he asks him how the light on his bike works. It's a dynamo, the teacher says, with magnets inside. William asks what he'd need to make one, and the teacher tells him to try the library. But William doesn't have a library card because the fees haven't been paid.

So when Mr. Kachigunda asks why he shouldn't report him, William says he can keep a secret. There's a man who comes to his village to see his sister. Mr. Kaca gets the message. He takes William to the librarian and tells her that William is working on experiments with him and he'd like him to keep studying in the library.

And William sits down with the books on magnets and electricity. and he reads and reads. One day out on the dry land, the wind picks up the dust and spins it into a little tower and William can't stop looking at it. Then the president comes for the rally with flags, music, and a huge crowd. Chief Wimbe gets up and speaks.

He thanks the president and says he hopes he wins the coming election, but he says the floods have created a dangerous situation and the harvest is going to fail. The village needs emergency grain. He wants to vote for this government, but he can't vote for any man who turns a blind eye to a catastrophe. The crowd goes quiet.

After the speech, the president's guards drag the old chief behind the stage and beat him. And then the president's car drives away in a cloud of dust. Trywell can only stand there and watch. That night, the men of the village gather around the chief, and Trywell stands with William under the trees and talks to him quietly.

The next part is called Cucalola, the harvest. And it's a tiny harvest. The whole family sorts through one little pile of maze. Soon, even wooden beams from roofs are being carried through the market, and the prices for grain are chocked up on a board. William has a plan now, a windmill to charge a battery, and the battery to power a pump.

With water, they could plant in the dry season and get two harvests a year, and they wouldn't run out of food. And with Mr. Kachigunda's dynamo, he could do it. But Mr. Kachigunda has his own plans. He tells Annie he doesn't want her staying in the village anymore. He has people in Mangoi and they can go there and get married.

Annie asks if he wants her to run away and disgrace her family. He tells her he loves her and that they can come back when he can pay her family a proper bride price. There's no money for teachers anymore and they might close the school. Then the headmaster walks into the science class and finds William there.

He tells him he's stealing from the family of every student who paid and from every teacher in the school. William keeps saying his father will pay, but the headmaster expels him and tells him he can never study at this school again. At home, things are getting worse. People run across the fields carrying baskets.

Agnes and William hide the family bicycle in the shed, and Triwell rides out on a truck with other men past land with nothing growing on it. At the grain depot, a line of people stretches as far as you can see. When the truck arrives, the crowd rushes the gate. William rides there on the bike and squeezes his way through.

Inside, it's chaos. Hundreds of people are pushing for grain, and William finally gets a sack and drags it out on his back. That night, by the light of a lantern, Triwell divides the maze into small piles on the table. Agnes talks with him, and you can see the worry on both of their faces.

The next part is called angala, which means hunger. Now meals are tiny, just a little bowl of food each. One night, William asks Annie for help. He needs her to talk to Mr. Kachugunda. He needs the dynamo from his bike. I can make rain, he tells her. Then Annie is gone. She's left a letter and Agnes reads it standing in the yard.

Annie has gone to Mangoi with the teacher and the family goes to the school to look for an address. The headmaster says he'll do his best to find Mr. Kachigunda, but they're closing the school because there aren't enough students or teachers left. Then Agnes speaks. She says her husband is starving himself so he won't take food from the children.

When they got married, they promised each other they would never pray for rain like their ancestors. They'd be modern people and their children would go to school. And it was here that Annie met the teacher. And it was here that they expelled her son. William asks one question. In his room, William shows his friends what he's been working on.

In America, electricity is made from wind. They're going to build a windmill, but first a small one to see if it works. They build it from scrap with a fan for blades and they wire it up to a big radio. Meanwhile, Chief Wimbe lies sick in bed. William carries the model out to his father in the field and hooks it up to a radio to show him.

For the real one, he needs the family bicycle, but Triwell won't hear it. They argue, and when William won't let it go, Trywell shoves him to the ground. William lies in the dirt and his little windmill lies next to him. It's too hot. The sky is empty and it won't rain for months.

William talks to his friends. If they stay like this, they die. They have to find another bike and build the windmill. One of them says it was just a toy. William says it's not a toy he showed them. So, the boys go to Triwell's door together and ask him to give William the bike. Trywell asks if they want to fight him, and he lifts a hoe and tells them to get away from his house.

They leave and one of the boys says he has to go home and be with his father. A dust storm blows through the village. The school is empty now and then William finds his dog lying dead and he breaks down crying over him. Across the village, Triwell sits and prays beside the sick chief.

Agnes comes out and talks to her husband. They talk for a long time face to face outside the house. William buries his dog on a hill. The last part of the story is called Mipo Wind. Trywell walks up the hill and sits down next to his son by the grave. They talk for a long time, father and son, and now they have the bicycle.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019) Ending Explained

William and his friends raise the tall wooden poles, tie them together, and put the bicycle up on top with the wheel and the dynamo. The whole village gathers around the well to watch. William climbs up to the top. The blades catch the wind and start to spin faster and faster. The battery needs to charge and then the pump starts.

Water comes up out of the well and runs down the channel into the fields. Trywell grabs his son and holds him. Everyone digs channels to carry the water further, and soon little green shoots of maze come up out of the dry ground. At sunset, the masked dancers walk across the plane again.

There's another funeral in the village, and the men gather to pray. William has a new puppy at his feet now. His family stands together in front of the house and William climbs up his windmill one more time high above fields that are green again. The movie ends with what happened in real life.

William was awarded scholarships to finish school in Malawi and then to attend the African Leadership Academy in South Africa. Agnes and Triwell still live in Wimbe village. Annie was never able to attend university. She's still married to Mike Kachaganda. And the real William tells how after he dropped out of school, he went to the library, read a book called Using Energy, and built his windmill.

A boy with no school, no money, and no help. Just a library book and the wind.