The No. 1 Botswana Movie Shoot

source: The New York Times

AS Alexander McCall Smith writes in the opening of his best-selling novel “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency,” “Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Botswana, at the foot of Kgale Hill.” Though her cases tend to dwell on sins like philandering and low-level insurance scams, her greatest mystery these days is whether her story can translate to film.

Precious Ramotswe has no blue steel pistol, just two desks, two chairs, a telephone and an old typewriter. Her tiny white van is incapable of high-speed chases and fiery stunts. Then there is Mma Ramotswe herself. (Mma is a local honorific.) Film sleuths usually exude chiseled sexiness and a noir persona. But as Mr. McCall Smith puts it, Precious Ramotswe is “the fat lady detective”: rounded, not chiseled; softhearted, not dark.

Would anyone watch a film about a “traditionally built” (as she puts it) shamus whose main preoccupation is contemplating her cases under an acacia tree?

The director Anthony Minghella allows that it [continue reading]