It’s unfortunate, but I’m quite uneducated when it comes to the South African cinemascape. So, I had no idea that Meet The Khumalos is actually a remake of the 2017 film Meet The Kandasamys. I suppose if you know anything about that film, you probably know what this one’s about, but for the uninitiated, let me give you an outline of Meet The Khumalos so you can decide if it’s worth a watch or not. The film follows two families, the Khumalos and the Sitholes, who are new neighbors but apparently also old foes. Grace, the matriarch of the Khumalos, hates Bongi, the new neighbor but old best friend. To add to the drama, their kids fall in love and keep their beautiful romance a secret. However, Grace and Bongi are quick to smell something fishy and decide to sabotage the relationship rather than talk to their kids like civil parents. What follows is the two moms getting together to ruin their kids’ relationship. But will they manage to do it? Or will they hurt their kids without reason?
What I thoroughly enjoyed about Meet The Khumalos is that it spends a good amount of time on both the younglings’ romance and the mums’ conspiracies. The film is a tight 1 hour and 30 minutes of entertainment from start to finish. Starring some of the biggest names in South African cinema, Meet The Khumalos depicts Zulu culture for people who don’t know about it, thanks to Netflix. To me, this is the best part of the film. Where on one side we have the Khumalo mother and son, who are ready to conquer the world with their “modern” ideas, the Sithole mother and daughter are rooted in their culture while still being open-minded. I can imagine grappling with cultural identity is quite a challenge for young people today, and the movie does a good job in addressing it with an open-mindedness, never making it seem like one side is better than the other.
Now, the story isn’t that deep, as you can imagine, and something that I found really lacking is the backstory to why the women had a falling out back in the day. It just seems to be an afterthought rather than the foundational reason for whatever is going on. This is a common qualm I have with a lot of films now with their superficial plots and no actual thought put into the real substance of the film. It’s like whoever’s making the film thinks their audience is plain stupid, which is not the case. However, I can forgive this particular one because it is somewhat detailed in some other aspects. Sure, it’s a comedy, but you can’t expect us to rave about bread when there’s not even butter to go with it.
Despite being in Zulu, the humor translates well, even though occasionally, the slapstick is quite annoying. But this is just my personal issue with slapstick comedy. The cast all elevate the basic plot of the film in a delightful way. Khanyi Mbau is fantastic as Grace, and you can’t help but feel a little bit annoyed by Grace. On the other hand, Ayanda Borotho is charming as Bongi; even with all the screaming and scheming, they make quite the duo, one that’s worth watching. Also, here’s a little warning for the ophidiophobes because Netflix will never give you that information!
I do think some stuff is lost in translation in terms of subtitles. We all know how terrible Netflix subs are, but it’s not like this makes the movie incomprehensible. If anything, you just have to pay more attention to the Zulu, I guess. I did have a slight problem with the pacing of the film as well. It feels like, at the beginning, everything is moving super fast, then in the middle, there’s a lot of breathing space for the comedy, I suppose, and then in the end again, it feels like everything’s being rushed to give us the happy ending we’re all looking for. But these are just some small qualms in the larger scheme of things. In no way am I trying to stop you from watching this movie, I’m just trying to manage your expectations in case they’re up too high.
The visuals are great, and dang, I want to live in these houses. There are some really beautiful shots when the couple go camping (minus the snake one, thank you very much), and the costumes are pretty fun, too. I especially love how the two leading women can be seen as drastically different just by looking at them. The colors scream summer, and it just feels like a dose of the vitamins we’ve been missing with all the saturated color grading we’ve been getting more of recently.
At the end of the day, if you’re looking for a fun, vibrant, and humorous movie that is culturally unique, I’d recommend Meet The Khumalos. I love how much of global cinema we get to enjoy just sitting at home, so it’s only fair we take full advantage of the situation. There’s nothing prestige about this movie, but for a rom-com that’s coming to Netflix in 2025, it definitely brings more to the table than its subpar English counterparts. Don’t get me started on the Netflix rom-com wave; it’s absolutely diabolical how they think we’ll eat up anything with the letters “rom” in them. There are a couple of pun jokes in this movie that I definitely gobbled up, and for that alone, I think this movie is actually funny. But, at the end of the day, if you’re looking for some deep story and a lot of family bonding, then I’d say skip this one. If you’re just looking for a fun time with some friends or family, Meet The Khumalos may do you some good. I’d give this movie 3 out of 5 stars.
