The Engagement
Charisma Productions Presents: Martha Ankomah (Samira), Nikki Samonas (Leonie), Emanuel Emoabino (Carlos), Francis Slomcombe (Mike), Ato Erick (Drake). Story/Screenplay, Kensteve Anuka; DOP, Gaff Marley; Prod./Executive Producer, Olowu Deji; Director, Kensteve Anuka.
The engagement is more or less a story laced with all the ingredients of a soap opera. The plot is shallow, dialogues and scenes are not in line with the story and the plot. At the end of the film, you’ll be asking yourself two salient questions: Will Samira and Carlos finally marry and put the long lost love behind them? Or will Leonie be freed from the police and regains her sanity and become a bridesmaid for Samira, she helped saved from the seaside years ago? The script and the story didn’t resolve these questions, but it appears the answers will be in the next episode, next season.
The Engagement is a story about a girl, about to get engaged to Mike (Francis Slocombe) but by the look of things, the fiance is not quite ready. This one time, Samira/Maria (Martha Ankomah) and her sister Leonie (Nikki Samonas) go out shopping and enter a photo studio where the owner Carlos (Emanuel Emoebino), seems to have known Samira/Maria, long time ago. Samira/Maria half believes she has crossed path with this studio owner somehow somewhere and especially so when she notices her picture up on the shelf, a picture Carlos was weeping over minutes before they enter.
Carlos is hired by Samira/Maria to take shots at her pre-engagement party, but at the party, Carlos asks Samira/Maria to break her engagement with Mike because he’s in love with her. Though Samira/Maria is not quite sure of herself, something keeps telling her she and Carlos had had a life before but she just can’t place her finger on the exact time and where. They have a chance to have their first kiss, though, something not out of the ordinary but for the mystic fact that their lives belong to one another.
Her so called sister Leonie had fallen head over heels for Carlos, the moment she sees him at the studio and seduces him to bed. She’s infuriated when Samira/Maria tells her she’s disengaged from Mike and is in love with Carlos. Leonie hires thugs to beat Samira /Maria until she ends in the hospital and wheelchair bound. Carlos, having kissed Samira and call her the love of his life, and has sex with Leonie, he has an explanation to give because Leonie is not giving up on loving him after the one night stand. When Carlos tells her finally, Samira/Maria is the love of his life, she goes ballistic and decides to kill Samira/Maria.
Leonie forces Samira/Maria from the wheelchair and takes her outside to dump her in an empty pool. While there, she calls Maria by her real name, ‘Samira,’ and discloses to her how she Leonie saved her from drowning in the sea and brought her home, and made her her sister. But now, she’s killing Maria because she’s standing between her and most of her loved ones.
Leonie pushes Samira overboard. But Samira comes back up and confronts Leonie for the last time. The police, however, gets there before Leonie could take her life.
Carlos’ dedication to Samira is a joke and in fact, his playboy attitude towards the relationship with her causes the problem at the end of the movie. Characters in this film have depth, but the plot is shallow, making the story soapy.