With story written by Biodun Stephen (also starring as Darasimi), this movie titled “FAMILY HURT” is directed by Olubunmi Akingbola, produced by Rita Onyeogani & Biodun Stephen and Executively produced by Biodun Stephen herself. The movie is currently streaming on the latter’s YouTube channel with same name.

SYNOPSIS: (MAY contain spoilers)

Araola ‘Ara’ (Wunmi Toriola) & Darasimi ‘Sister me’ (Biodun Stephen) are sisters. They have a son & a daughter respectively. While the former being the youngest appears to be well-off financially, we cannot say the same of the latter being the eldest (or so it seems). We would then see Darasimi almost living off of Ara until an occurrence that then threatens their relationship.

To find out how things play out here, why not grab your popcorn and or favourite drink, munch, sip along as you follow events unfold in this family drama with a runtime of 1hour 46minutes.

MY TAKE:
I appreciate the fact that I could watch this with my kids; something that is hard to come by in the Nollywood of nowadays.

Acting from the totality of the cast was somewhat okay though not entirely impressive. Miwa nonetheless did great from when her screen time started but Blessing Obasi-Nze (as Iya Chinedu) did it best for me. She managed to add colour with sprinkles of hilarious moments to the movie with her interpretation of the character she played even though she had limited scenes.

Although the story has potentials, the plot is however underwhelming. Maybe, I approached this with a wee bit of high expectations hence my disappointment. But the poster didn’t help matters much either as it is somewhat misleading in a certain kind of way.

True, the things that happen in some families as highlighted here (deadbeat fathers, ungrateful relatives, etc), would leave your mouth agape. However, for the direction this movie took, the plot isn’t as compelling. Somethings appeared exaggerated or overly stretched.

Some scenes were dragged unnecessarily, repeated dialogues that added next to nothing to an already struggling plot with missing links here and there as an obvious result of continuity issues.

This feels more like a rushed project than one where there was an actual brainstorming for adequate result. In all honesty, I wasn’t drawn into the world of either of the lead characters.

OBSERVATION/QUESTIONS:
1. I only got to know Darasimi’s name from the end credit of the movie. The most I heard her being called is ‘Sister me!’ And that’s from Ara.

2. What does Ara do for a living to maintain her lifestyle? If mentioned, did we ever see her in any related environment physically or by reference? 

3. Where did the character of Esther come from? 

 When we saw Akin’s father Mr. Adaramoye (portrayed by Sola Esan), Esther referred to him as ‘daddy’. Or is it one of those ‘everybody calls him daddy thingy’? Even Ara too mentioned “your father” while talking to Esther. Now, this transpired from around frame 38:05 or so; the only scene we saw or heard anything about Esther. Or wait! Is that supposed to be her P.A? 

 That part was rather confusing.

4. How did Akin finish secondary school before Carrie (played by Miwa Olorunfemi)? While I understand that some kids look younger than their age based on stature or physique, Carrie from the start of the movie appeared to have been older than Akin when they were younger. So what happened?

5. One minute, Darasimi declares she can’t foot the remaining percentage of her daughter’s fees abroad, the next, after a series of calls by Ara, we’re made to understand Carrie is now overseas. We never saw Dara ask Ara how she did it or even acknowledge it. Did I miss something?

6. In the third act, I was hoping to see Akin (whether home or even some make-belief-abroad). We never did. It became more of Carrie till the end.

7. At the beginning of the movie, I was dyïng to see Carrie’s reaction after that second scene when her mum lied about her school shoes. Seems little Carrie wasn’t given as much lines.

Conclusively, this is a movie about some hurts in families that could change even the softest of people. It however didn’t do it much for me as per delivery & execution.