Saw a Nigerian movie for
the first time in Cinema, and it wasn’t quite the same experience you’d get in
direct-to-video releases.
“Supposedly Director, Michelle Bello’s love story to Lagos, Flower
Girl is an interesting take on Nigerian romantic comedies.”
The Rundown
Behind the name: The
girl is a florist, therefore, she is a Flower Girl
Country:
Nigeria, 2013
Genre:
Romantic Comedy
Film Industry:
Nollywood, 2013
Director:
Michelle Bello
Cast: Damilola Adegbite (as Kemi), Chuks Chukwujekwu (as
Tunde Kulani), Chris Attoh (as Umar), Eku Edewor (as Sapphire), Bikiya Graham
Douglas (as Stella).
Contrast with:
Pretty Woman, She’s all That
Hate it or Love it? Appreciate it.
Synopsis in a Sentence: A girl gets dumped by her lawyer boyfriend and tries
to get him back by getting in a ‘fake’ relationship with one of the hottest
actors around.
The plot of
the movie was interesting enough, it had a few good actors and the production wasn’t
terrible. So why didn’t it quite hit the spot?
On Writing: The
Plot
The plot takes a relatively new angle
for a Nigerian movie, but we’ve seen it a million times and more in Hollywood
productions. The characters were well written and developed, though
one-dimensional, and the overall storyline was good. But that’s just it. It was
just good. Perhaps it could have been great if it had that African flair, that
Nigerian take on life that makes our movies so original. Quite honestly, the
story was less Nigerian and more wannabe American. And we’ve seen way too much
of that. Recurring themes like “the love triangle,” “the makeover” and “actor
falling for the unlikely girl” has been done way too many times. What this film
should have done was to take these themes to the next level, give them a new
outlook, or lead us on and then thrown us a curveball just when we think we
know what it’s all about. Yet, we missed that in this plot.
(3/5)
On Acting:
The Cast
A
good cast, but the delivery of the characters was quite overdone—in almost all
fronts. The characters could have perhaps toned down their acting to come
across as more natural and true-to-life. Everything was too deliberate. Every
character seemed to scream with desperation: “I am funny, so laugh!” And a few
of them did make us laugh, but the funniest parts were in the most unassuming
renditions of the characters. The cast could have delivered their characters
just less, slightly less consciously.
(3/5)
 |
| Chris Attoh & Damilola Adegbite |
On Production:
The Creativity
The
production in this one was quite good. Some great shots here and there, good
angles and perspectives from the camera. Perhaps too much product placement, but
great music… Speaking of music, there were quite a lot of tracks by Wizkid, but
the only thing I’d call out was the sound editing. Really shaky and uneven, too
much ambient sound in some scenes, improperly edited songs—almost amateurish
actually. And that certainly affected the overall production quality.
(3/5)
On Resolution:
The Conclusion
The
movie was resolved quite well. Ardent movie watchers might find it cliché, but
there’s no arguing that it was well done. Some cute moments there, a few sappy
moments there, instances of laugh-out-loud overdone comedy, but nothing too
terrible, so the resolution wins it for this film!
(4/5)
The Verdict:
Recommended to those who want a cutesy romantic comedy, with a twinge of
Nigerian flavour.
Overall Score = 13/20
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