By Ali Baylay
A Devine Touch Film; Starring: Ini Edo, Desmond Elliot, Tonto Dikeh, Muna Obiekwe, Kofi Adjorlolo, Casandra Odita; Editor: Uche Ike; Producers: Emeka Igwemba, Kinsley Okereke, Ikechukwu Onyeka; Executive Producers: Eriobi Chibuzor, Nwegwu Hinweike; Assitant Director: B.B.C Nwachineke; Director: Ikechukwu Onyeka. 146 mins. c2008
Have you ever been asked by a friend what the book you’re reading is about, and you can’t tell in one sentence unless you tell the whole story? That is how The Princess Of My Life is structured. A plot drift I could call it. A plot drift occurs when the writer couldn’t decide who the central character in the story is, and the viewer is treated to a kind of all-you-can-view buffet of plots.
In The Princess Of My Life, plot lines go like this: old friends meet at a tennis court and resume acquaintance and out of which a business deal is struck; then both of their children gets acquainted over a dinner at one of the parent’s home, and both children end in each other’s arm as lovers; parents business deal falls apart, and one of the parents dies of heart attack; daughter of the deceased is pregnant for business partner’s son; partner’s son moves out, and gets job from a woman he spends a night in bed with. When a writer floats from one plot to the next, none of the emotions she evokes could be realized by the viewer.
Chief Jumbo (Kofi Adjorlolo) meets Chief Mba at a tennis exercise and Chief Mba is shrewdly lured into a shady business deal by Chief Jumbo. At a dinner at Chief Jumbo’s house his son, Kevin (Desmond Elliot) falls in love with Chief Mba’s daughter Chioma, (Ini Edo). While the family of Chief Mba espouses the affair of their daughter, Chief Jumbo do not want his son to have anything to do with Chioma, I guess knowing the outcome of his shady deal. When Chief Mba learns that Chief Jumbo dupes him out of 2.5 million dollars, and that the EFCC was on his tail, and soon after, the EFCC arrives to arrest him, he has heart attack. Meanwhile, Chioma and Kevin are at the beach.
Upon the discovery of the scam and the ultimate death of Chief Mba, Chioma and her remaining family loath Kevin but already, Chioma is pregnant for Kevin. Kevin has a stand off with his father and moves out in protest of his wicked and inhuman behavior. Yet, Kevin goes on to fall in love and sleeps with a woman because she offers him job. The story ends.
The Princess Of My Life has a poor resolution, that is, if there is any at all. When end credits run and you’re still sitting there looking at the fuzzy texts on the screen and you’re thinking, whatever happened to Chioma and her unborn child; What ever happened to the crook father of Kevin? All along, you’re assuming that this movie will end like a Greek tragedy or reversal of fortune: Kevin kills his father so he and his ‘princess of his life’ could manage his father’s business empire, and since he does not have a mother, then Chioma’s mother could be one, and bring her home since their property been confiscated. But for Kevin to run into another woman’s arm leaving Chioma in such distress, while at the same time carrying his baby is not logical in plot mechanics.