A family drama, told through the eyes of a child, about a white, farm family in the final days of white-ruled Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and featuring a remarkable performance by eight-year-old newcomer Lexi Venter, is the subject of actor-turned-director Embeth Davidtz’s DON’T LET’S GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT. Lexi Venter gives an astonishing, wholly believable performance as seven-year-old Bobo (Alexandra) Fuller, who lives on a south African farm with her parents and older sister in the waning days of the Rhodesian Bush War, as national elections loom that will end white rule in Zimbabwe. First-time director Embeth Davidtz, who partly grew up in South Africa, also wrote the script, adapted from Alexandra Fuller’s bestselling 2001 memoir of the same name. On top of that, Davidtz also stars as Bobo’s mother Nicola Fuller.
Set in 1979-1980 and shot in South Africa, DON’T LET’S GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT depicts things mostly through seven-year-old Bobo’s point of view, with Bobo serving a narrator, and giving us a child’s-eye views of life, racism, war, and the political turmoil that she witnesses growing up on her white family’s hard-scrabble farm in rural Rhodesia. It is the waning days of the long-running Bush War, and the nation is preparing for elections that will transform it.
The film opens with Bobo (Lexi Venter) whispering that her mother Nicola Fuller (Embeth Davidtz) has told her not to sneak into her room at night lest she might be mistaken for a terrorist and accidentally get shot, by her mom, who sleeps with a big gun in case “terrorists” come into the house at night. Bobo worries about going to the bathroom alone at night, fearful of encountering a terrorist in the house in the middle of the night.
Both her heavily-armed parents are focused on defending their farm, and her father Tim (Rob Van Vuuren) is often gone as he serves in the white militia fighting African “terrorists” in the last days of war, even as elections and political changes loom. The long-running war has left Bobo used to the weapons and situation, as she casually helps her father reload his ammo magazines and toys with a grenade, even as her father looks on. Bobo’s hard-drinking mother Nicola is also armed and vigilant against trespassers on their property, while largely ignoring both her daughters, young Bobo and her older sister Vanessa (Anina Hope Reed).
Bobo is left largely to fend for herself, a wild child dressed in cowboy boots and dingy undershirt and shorts, with uncombed hair and dirty face. The seven-year-old roams around the property on her own on her little motorbike, with a BB gun slung across her back in imitation of her parents.
Bobo’s narration offers neutral observations of the world of both white and African adults. Young Bobo is torn between her family and her love of Sarah (Zikhona Bali), one of two African servants the family employs to care for the house, along with Jacob (Fumani N. Shilubana). Sarah does more to care for the little girl and gives her more attention than her neglectful mother or the rest of her family. Bobo alternates between bossing Sarah, in imitation of her parents, and begging Sarah to tell her stories of her African culture. Clearly, Bobo loves Sarah, who is fond of little Bobo. As Sarah wipes Bobo’s smudged her face and gives her the attention she craves, Jacob voices worries about Sarah’s fondness and caring treatment of the white girl, warning that they are being watched by other Africans, who might misconstrue her actions and think she is a collaborator.
The Fullers’ farm is a ramshackle place that has seen better days, and the same can be said for the family in their rundown home. There is also a “going to the dogs” aspect in Nicola’s nightly drinking bouts, which are accelerating. You especially get a sense of the family’s decline when Bobo and her mother visit Nicola’s prim, starched mother (Judy Ditchfield) and her wheelchair-bound father (Peter Terry) in town. Despite grandmother’s nice tea set and decorum, her cold nature is revealed when she barks at her husband, perhaps left mute by a stroke, to be quiet when he tries to speak. Later, wild child Bobo’s polite exchange with an African family who she finds camped on their farm indicates that she did learn some manners.
Lexi Venter is amazing as Bobo, with a naturalness and ease that makes her child’s view comments completely believable, in one of the best child performances in recent memory. When Venter’s Bobo asks her mother Nicola “Are we racists,” after a visit to Nicola’s mother, Bobo’s haughty grandmother, the question is spoken with exactly the right tone, precisely as a young child would ask it, and it elicits a defensive denial from her mother, although that is at odds with what we observe. In every scene, Lexi Venter is completely believable and natural, whether smarting off, clinging to her beloved Sarah, or explaining the world to us, as she see it.
Embeth Davidtz is wonderful as the troubled Nicola, a complicated woman losing her grip on reality and seized with panic about losing their farm. Zikhona Bali is also a stand-out, as warm-hearted Sarah, who can’t help caring for adoring Bobo despite the risks. Unlike Jacob, Sarah is not from the area near the Fuller’s farm but a distant village with a different people and culture, and feels a bit of an outsider. Her time with Bobo is a release from pressures she feels for her as well as the child.
Using a child’s viewpoint allows director Davidtz to explore issues of racism and attachment to the land in deeper way. Although Nicola Fuller was not born in Zimbabwe, she feels a deep attachment to the land, where she has buried at least one child, and has a fierce need to defend it, which unbalances her judgement. In an encounter with an African family camped on the edge of the farm, she reacts with hysterical threats and deaf ears, ignoring them when they say it was their family farm before it was hers.
Having grown up in South Africa from the age of eight, Embeth Davidtz has unique insights on this historical moment and its family drama, although South Africa and Rhodesia took different paths in ending apartheid. The director also felt a link to the family’s story of alcoholism and mental illness. With the casting of the remarkable Lexi Venter as the lead character, Davidtz scores an strong directorial debut with this drama.
DON’T LET’S GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT offers an elegantly-told family drama that is set at a pivotal moment in southern African history, which is further elevated by a remarkable performance by child actor Lexi Venter and the film’s child’s-eye view exploration of the roots of racism, war, and conflicting bonds to the same land.
DON’T LET’S GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT, in English and Shona with English subtitles, opens in theaters on Friday, July 18, 2025.
RATING: 3 out of 4 stars
