Characters & Themes

Moffie (2019) Characters, Setting & Themes Explained

Name: Moffie
Genre: Romance, War, Drama
Released: 2019-09-04
Duration: 104 min

Release, runtime and language: 2019 · 104 mins · Afrikaans; Echo score 72; #21,740 9
Directed by: Oliver Hermanus
Starring: Kai Luke Brummer, Matthew Vey, Rikus Terblanche, Wynand Ferreira, Hilton Pelser, Ryan de Villiers

A young man in 1981 South Africa must complete his brutal and racist two years of compulsory military service while desperately maintaining the secrecy of his homosexuality.

Romance War Drama Cast, crew & box office

On this page (4)

1 Where to watch
2 The book behind the movie
3 Movies like Moffie
4 Every angle

Where to watch

Where to Watch Moffie (2019)

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Characters, themes & setting

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The book behind the movie

Moffie

by André Carl van der Merwe

Oliver Hermanus retains Nicholas van der Swart's compulsory service, apartheid military training, English-speaking difference within an Afrikaner institution, concealment of homosexuality, abuse, racial indoctrination, threat of Ward 22, and tentative connection with another recruit. The film reduces dialogue and uses bodies, drills, landscape, and surveillance to express repression, while combining or changing relationships from the longer autobiographical novel. Van der Merwe's book gives more explicit interior history and a broader account of service, making clear how the army's policing of sexuality belonged to the same political system as the war it trained these young men to fight.

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Movies Like Moffie

Similar movies to Moffie: the same genre, themes or kind of story. Each one comes with its own plot summary, timeline and ending explained.

Browse all movie summaries

Moffie

2021

The Mudge Boy

2004

Eismayer

2023

Military Dog

2019

Hand Off

2019

No Rest for the Brave

2003

A Love to Hide

2005

Whispering Moon

2006

Clapham Junction

2007

Another Country

1984

Love in Country

2021

For a Lost Soldier

1992

Every angle

Moffie (2019) Explained: Plot, Timeline & Characters

Everything about Moffie in one place: what happens in the plot summary, the timeline in chronological order, the characters and meaning. What's After the Movie adds the cast, box office and post-credit scenes.

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