This is a typical love story with the usual rich kid, poor kid union hurdles. A young man and his best friend return back to Nigeria for a short while to visit family (among other reasons). He first goes to his best friend’s home to finally put a face to the already existing spatial relationship. There he bumps into his best friend’s sister whom we would come to learn would be the love of his life. He makes obvious (and cringy) moves to shoot his shot but apaz our babe is a hard guy. But sis does not deny his looks though. He is so fine, he makes a sister describe him as ‘hot’ comrade! one soldier down! I repeat one soldier down! Calling for backup! hard guys? hard guys? a sister down, calling for backup, over and out. Of course, such a story ends with a love conquers it all narrative but I am definitely here to dissect everything in-between!
Trust me, I have no problem with cliche narratives, I think they are a good way to pass time. But I’m huge on perfection so there’s definitely no shady means of arriving at a conclusion for me. Simply put, I abhor wuru wuru to the answer. A lot of things were done wrong in this movie, and I mean a whole lot! Now I’ll point some of them out chronologically.
In what felt like the 5th scene, we see a man flogging his child, then Lola (our protagonist) and Madam Eloho rush out to find out what’s going on. The man says that the child is an “obanje” and she takes his money to the coven. Then they just give him pained looks and Madam Eloho goes “bring her, I will take her” and the man says “ehn, take her!” And that’s how she adopts the girl. Just like that? a total stranger? you don’t ask for more information? nothing! I really could see the story’s effort in addressing violence meted on children. But if you are going to condemn it from the standpoint of it being mostly caused by misguided or uninformed judgments, then you owe us a lot more than “she is Obanje. Bring her. Ehn, take her.” Personally, I think it should have happened in a way that when he states his claim, they ask him why he thinks so and he states an obvious fallacy, maybe something relating to a medical condition that requires a lot of attention and consumes money. Then they go ahead and educate him on the issue. She can still go ahead and adopt the child because it will be really cliche if the man just believes the words of two strangers over what he has known all his life. That way, the audience is enlightened. Job well done!
Still in the same scene, Madam Eloho just goes on to say “I’ll think of a name to give her.” Excuse me? Are you saying that such a grown-up child doesn’t have a name??? Couldn’t you just ask her for her name? That was poorly done for real!
The ideal conversation should be “hello dear, what is your name?” Not “what do you think about Esther?” to Lola. O wrong nauuu!
Again, in the same scene (omo, wetyn we no see for this one scene abeg. Lol). Madam Eloho asks Lola “when are we getting the invitation to your wedding” and Lola says “well there is someone.” Aunty, is it the same someone you’ve not had a conversation with???? No, that’s very wrong. Especially because when this same character was asked a similar question a few scenes back, she says that she is only concerned about growing in God and improving her life. And from what we are made to understand, there is not much time difference between the two occurrences. So
So how do you ship yourself with someone you’ve not spoken to about it at all. You don’t even know his background. What if he doesn’t align with what you want????? I feel like that was an unfitting detail for the character that was already portrayed to us.
THE PLOT IS RUSHED!!!!!!!
There was a lot of MAJOR IN MINOR AND MINOR IN MAJOR. It felt like they literally had two weeks to convince us that the characters will fall in love. And you’ll actually think that Ejikeme (our male protagonist) leaves in exactly two weeks but that is not the case. For some reason, the subplots were not built. They were only hinted at. To do what please? give suspense? abi DIY script completion. Lol. Other stories like the lives of other seemingly important characters should have been built on to give the script more richness. I won’t even lie, it felt like the flooding of A-list actors just to boost a poorly developed script. There could have been more depth, please.
Now with acting…
Well, I already pointed out that there was a lot of celebrity feature to cover the inadequacies of the script. And yes, most of the actors did well. Except that I did not like that Keme’s character is too calm and does not even get angry where necessary. And his father, we could see him struggle to remember his script. It felt more like a recitation than acting.
Costume ooo!!!! hmmm.
No, the costume of this movie was not it at all, especially the makeup. Kai! The worst has to be the model show. Did you see those clothes? So ugly! I wanted to cry. Nah, it was terrible. Wait, did you see the wedding costume? Leemao.
just an aside though: who else noticed that when the adrenaline was high during the proposal, the subtitle said “(gospel music)” Leemao!
The resolution of the conflict was terrible!!!!! How can a really ambitious and callous woman change all of a sudden because of one speech. Ko make nauuu! It should have been in progression. It was not realistic at all. And next thing both families are lovey-dovey. mtchew.
To be fair though, I have to commend the movie for touching a lot of social issues like —Politics being a beast and changing you, —the drunkenness of power, etc; but it does this very shallowly. So I guess it’s a well done for the attempt then?
My favourite thing has to be how this movie was indeed Christian in its portrayal of Christian values. Especially the intentional plot that makes Lola and Keme not to kiss until when they married.
Another thing I didn’t fancy was the closing voice-over saying Lagos is a land of dreams. It felt like saying anything can happen in Lagos somewhat excuses the shortcomings of the movie.
At the end though, when my attention was drawn to the fact that the movie had a solo sailor -Kathryn Fasegha being the producer, director, etc, it was not far fetched that we saw rigid plots because I assume there was not enough juxtaposition of ideas and points of view.
And this is it for this review. Thank you for staying till the end. Do well to engage this post by dropping your comments to let us know what you think. Also, follow us on our social media platforms and engage us there as well. Until next time, stay jiggy!
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