PJ Movies Productions, Presents, Van Vicker, Tonto Dikeh, Ifeanyi Ikechukwu, Linda Kurt, Juliet Ibrahim. DOP, Chigozie Onoh; Editor, Bode Akintoye; Screenplay/Director, Tchidi Chikere; Producer, Paul Afube. (C 2015)
Losing You, as a title, is a verb (losing) expressing a subject (you). And in fact, it’s like an unfinished wail or cry of someone desperately in love and losing a grip on a loved one to another man, or woman, disease, or to death. Either way, the title of this movie doesn’t connote good tidings for the lover or lovers in question. Whatever solace I may have mustered to go through with the thus depressing title, must be for the fact that I saw Van Vicker and Tonto Dikeh on the scabbard. Oh, both of them can move a story, I ain’t lying.
Losing You is an adult romance of Teresa (Tonto Dikeh), and Ernest (Van Vicker), quite apart from the schoolyard, “if fishes are made to live in water, so you are made for me,” type romance in elementary school. They aren’t innocent. They are old enough to have a truckload of baggage and idiosyncracies you find in the adult universe that makes life an elaborate labyrinth to navigate.
Teresa and Ernest are madly in love with each other. But alas! They were not meant to be husband and wife, and they can’t let each other go. You may think another modern day Romeo and Juliet. No. Better yet, Endless Love. You’re not close. Their case is worse, especially in the traditional Nigerian setting. Teresa and Ernest have the same Genotype AS and therefore could never conceive. Yes, you read me right. They’ll never have a kid of their own. Now you tell that to a would-be Nigerian father-in-law or mother-in-law. Boy, you’re out of your mind and luck!
Now, that is a difficult situation, and I guess we all have been there. I remember, my Dad running off a girl from my room because he knew, the girl and I were cousins. Who says so? I hardly ever knew the girl’s parents. I still went after her, and this time we met under the light poles and dark school yards at night, where we would suck each other’s tongue pink. That’s what this story is about, the romance of forbidden love.
The plot of the story is simple: Ernest’s father couldn’t let his son marry Teresa because of a medical condition, and Ernest goes about dating another girl, (Rose) Juliet Ibrahim, who gets pregnant for him. Teresa, left in the wilderness with no boyfriend of her own, texts a high school friend, who used to steal mango from the Headmaster’s yard and gave it to her, because she loved mangoes.
The plot of Losing You emerges when Justice (Ifeanyi Ikehchukwa), the old schoolyard boyfriend of Teresa, wanting to put a stop to Ernest from obstructing his relationship with Teresa, told Rose about the affair, and Rose being so in love with Ernest, kills Teresa with a baton to her head. Tragedy! End of story!
This Africa Movie Academy Award winner for best screenplay for his 2008 release of Beautiful Soul deserves every bit of the accolade. He’s a writer of repute, and with style unimaginable. He knows how to get you in the shoes of his players by making their dialogues so personal. A lady friend of mine I watched Beautiful Soul with, couldn’t hold her tears from running. I enjoyed it.
To repeat the same mode here, in Losing You, tickling my emotions, my weak heart to tears didn’t cut it. A writer need not be predictable, especially with blockbuster productions. Accepting the fact that, Teresa and Ernest have the same blood group and therefore couldn’t conceive, I was expecting a twist in the story where for instance, nature would prove medical practitioners wrong, as in when Teresa and Ernest consummate and Teresa says, ” Do you think we just made a baby…the one we just did?”
Better yet, when characters in a story shed so many tears as I have never seen VanVicker and Tonto Dikeh, they deserve relief. I expected in the end, they walk holding hands together into the sunshine of life and live happily ever after. Teresa and Ernest are to suffer the faith of doomed lovers from the onset, and such movies can be depressing.
After a tedious day at the grind of life, we want to come home to movies that will give us hope for the morrow when we woke up for another bout with nature; we look forward to beautiful dreams but Losing You won’t give it to us. Maybe we should change gears. Create characters that are neither Beautiful soul nor Losing You. Characters and stories like Shirley Frimpong Manso’s, “A Sting In A Tale.” Boy that is a real sting in a tale, and the most beautiful story with a fair resolution of characters who suffer on this earth for the sake of love but goes into the afterworld rejoicing together. Watch it for inspiration.
Tonto Dikeh’s once rapid moves and actions in films didn’t take place in this movie. It could be the quarter pounder either the camera added to her weight or we simply blame her heaviness on the good old life. Leads in modern films shouldn’t be over one hundred and sixty pounds!
Dear DOP, please watch your dailies for that purple dot on the camera lens. Tt’s an obstruction not meant for production for an award winner. I salute you though, I beg.