Story written by Comfort Booth, directed by Kayode Kasum, produced by Chris Odeh and Executively produced by Kadir Salami in conjunction with Zainab Salami, this romance drama which was first released to cinemas on July 7, 2023 with a runtime of 1hour 48minutes is currently available for streaming on the KavaTV app.
MAY contain spoilers from here on
SYNOPSIS:
The night of their 10th wedding anniversary celebration saw Chijindu ‘CJ’ Amadi (portrayed by Wale Ojo) and his wife Lydia Danjuma (depicted by Osas Ighodaro) making a drastic decision occasioned by the lack of satisfaction in the bedmatic skills of the former.
In search of happiness albeit her “happy hour” couldn’t suffice, Lydia would find herself in a love triangle entanglement with an old flame (Kunle Remi), billionaire Shetima (Ramsey Nouah) as well as her now ex husband at which point a choice has to be made between love and lust when other things became just a blur.
MY TAKE:
The movie started out strongly but gradually lost its flare and momentum right from the second act.
STORY/PLOT:
Set in Northern Nigeria (given the names of most of the characters), the story highlights just as its title suggests, love, lust and everything in between. It portrays how many persons do not know what they really want from a marriage/relationship as their alter ego may sometimes be their worst nightmare. The main plot and the subplot of Lydia’s friend played by Anita Asuoha (a.k.a Real Warri Pikin) was great!
CASTING/PERFORMANCE:
The all-star cast did great but it felt like the actors had more to give than the resources that was made available to them. Hence, there appeared to have been some sort of a gap between performance and overall execution. By this, I mean, the interpretation of roles was excellent but on the whole, the end result or output of the movie itself was somewhat underwhelming.
DIRECTION/EXECUTION:
As stated earlier, this movie had potentials to have a better outcome but fell short midway as it became underwhelming. Pacing and sequencing didn’t really help matters much. The dialogues were not as engaging as one had anticipated especially given the manner with which the movie took off. Sometimes a bore; all these impacted on the overall result. Nevertheless, not entirely poor, it’s an average performance probably due to the choice of casting which sort of helped.
TECHNICAL ASPECT:
Cinematography is cool and pleasing to the eyes. Location and props are great! Speaking of which, I loved seeing the golf course. That looked relaxing. Background song was good too.
LESSON:
Put in the Nigerian parlance, “Wetin you dey find for Sokoto, e dey for ya shokoto” meaning the happiness you’re looking for from a distance, may just be sitting pretty next to you. The English man would say “the grass is always greener on the other side”
OBSERVATION/QUESTIONS:
1. The best man toasted to 10years of the couple’s marriage. Lydia, during their argument of ‘happy hour and sad seconds’ mentioned “Five years…FIVE YEARS, I’ve had to put up with this!” Please exactly how long was the couple’s marriage at that second scene of this movie?
2. Two years after the couple went their separate ways, we see their twin sons who look nothing more than 7years. There seems to have been something missing especially if the couple had been married for 10 or 5 years.
3. For what we later know of the estranged couple, did CJ eventually go for medical treatment to improve on his bedmatics or did Lydia had to lower her expectations and séxual fantasies?
4. We only saw Nadia Shetima (played by Efe Irele) once in the film. More like a cameo, she seemed upset in that one scene. We didn’t have much details for this. We only heard “I MARRIED HIM!” Or did I miss any further info?
5. Who offers another man $1million for one man to leave a woman for him? That wasn’t really believable?
6. So for how much Lydia was fuming & how impatient she seemed when she was asked by Mr. Shetima’s secretary to wait, she actually waited that long just to return a cheque she rejected? To think that she turned up unannounced! Please make it make sense!
7. Please pardon my probable ignorance on this. But Lydia’s last name was Danjuma. Was she a Muslim or a Christian? I’ve mostly seen Muslims bearing this name. Hence, if Lydia was a Muslim in the film, her dressing didn’t reflect this. Or can we say she was a non-practicing Muslim? Please I’d like to know! 
CONCLUSION:
On the whole, this isn’t a bad watch per se! It is one to consider for lack of a better option. I’m not particularly blown away by the storyline, plot or execution albeit the cast did amazing which is the factor that kept me going till the end!
VERDICT: 5/10
Have you seen this? What did you think?
