One On One
The first love between two adolescents is so powerful and pure. It’s the kind of love without reason, for they’re blind and innocent, virgin to the true intricacies of living a life. It is pure romance. The kind of love which the name of a partner, ‘Vivian’,’ Michael’, evokes magic and charm. With time, partners grow from adolescence to mature adults, and love is stricken by outside forces, then limitations and reasons set into their hearts and this time, not even the Shakespearean dictum of “Friend should bear his friend’s infirmities” holds water anymore. Sometimes.
One on One (Koni Concept/2007) fits a romance category that surpasses most productions coming from Nollywood assembly line. Writer, Chuks Obiora pours his poor heart into the story and hits the nail home in the last scene with the hitting of Vivian by a car and left to die. That’s how far love can take us to the limits of our lives.
One on One is a story of a boy chasing around a girl for his love sake, and girl plays hard to get for another love sake. A boy is in luck with a girl when he stands up to hoodlum as he tries to molest girl while girl’s lover scampers away from the scene. Boy’s face is bloodied by the hoodlum’s henchmen, but in the end, wins girl’s love. Their love quickly blooms but hampers when an uncompromising uncle decides to separate the girl from the boy by sending her away to a distant aunt. Girl goes into hiding but eventually caught in the company of the boy. The boy is arrested, but Girl in one of her hysterical cries threatens suicide and holds a kitchen-knife to her stomach if her lover is not brought back to her. The boy is left alone and love continues. That boy is Michael (Francis Duru), and the girl is Vivian(Ini Edo, 2006 nominee for Best Actress).
Michael graduates and gets hired by a bank and the bank owner’s daughter, Sylvia (Omotola Jalade Ekeinde) wants Michael. She takes Michael shopping, gets him sleep over in her bed, invites him to parties, even as Michael looks out of place in the crowd, and promises poor Michael heaven on earth. Under such materialistic spell, Michael’s heart is almost stolen. However, when Sylvia proposes to Michael a vacation for two in the UK, Michael senses something amiss, and rebels and abruptly leaves the scene and runs to his Vivian. Sylvia, relentless, summons Vivian to her private gym and offers the poor girl a payoff for leaving Michael with her. When Vivian refuses and hurries from the scene, she’s hit by a car right outside Sylvia’s house. If one had been engrossed in this movie up to this point, the soft heart will surely cry for Vivian. She endures so much pain for love’s sake.
To narrate One on One so haphazardly doesn’t reduce this story to one of the runs of the mill Nollywood romantic flicks and will be pure tragic if a story like this gets lost in the Nollywood shuffle. This story has a dept. It is a human story that centers around Michael, a young vibrant graduate, with an innocent look to his boyish demeanor, who finds himself standing on the precipice of his life. He, however, weathers it as his steadfast character does so in Immoral Act.
As to the characters of his two lead women vying for his love, screen giants in their own right, Vivian has, “nothing to offer Michael but cry, cry, cry”, as Sylvia succinctly describes Vivian to Michael; and Vivian in a later scene retorts to Sylvia, “You’re such a big talker”. In considering the lead lady in One on One, Pretty Woman, I Will Die For You and Society Lady, she’s a big talker alright, but also live big in real life. Remember, her wedding took place airborne aboard DASH 7.
If I were to write such a powerful romantic story, I would have rolled in the end credits right where Michael runs from Sylvia’s mansion and falls into the arms of the weeping Vivian, then they stand up (personifying victory) arm in arm, and kiss an everlasting kiss.