Review: 'He Named Me Malala' Is An Infomercial For An Inspiring Young Woman

This is a reprint of our review from the 2015 Telluride Film Festival.
 
The anticipated opening day screening of the Telluride Film Festival is an event that journalists not only routinely attend, but usually race to their computers afterwards to deliver a cogent, but timely review. However, with the the walk-don’t-run and ho hum “He Named Me Malala,” pundits politely clapped and leisurely walked to their next screening. No one really compelled to review or be perceived as being uncharitable to a genuinely inspirational figure by proxy.

Davis Guggenheim’s documentary “He Named Me Malala” begins with an animated storybook tale of how young Malala Yousafzai was given her name by her father Ziauddin. It’s both a mythical and prescient story—she’s named after a legend about a young Afghani folk hero who sacrificed herself to inspire and save her village. It’s fatefully eerie considering Malala Yousafzai was infamously shot by the oppressive Pakistani Taliban in 2012 for...