Rockcelly Resources Film Ltd presents, Yul Edochie (Eze), Chizzy Alichie (Princess) Nkechi Nweje (Nneora), Chike (Chris Okorondu), Uzo (Sammy Lee Nnamdi), Igwe (ElaweremP. Elawerem). Story/Screenplay, Onyeka Ikechi; Director of Photography, Jachike Okpara; Producer, Anaele Ugochukwu Dominic; Director, Onyeka Ikechi. (C 2017).
The title, Fada Fada connotes comedy or fun or at best, a farce or nothingness. Besides the title, Fada Fada addresses a serious subject matter, dealing with the theme of hope. In actual sense, it is a derivative of Barack Obama’s Audacity of Hope. Excuse me for addressing the world’s former best and great president, that way. I’m referring to the Writer, and not the President. Audacity, as defined, is nothing but daringness, fearlessness, boldness, and heroism. But the most significant source of courage is the foreknowledge or put merely, education, good education sprinkled with lots of common sense and gut.
Eze (Yul Edochie) is a new graduate and is fed up looking for jobs from oil companies in his town. His fellow graduates and companion job-seekers have different hopes, and luckily, they get good paying jobs. One day, Eze wakes up with a spark in his eyes, all worked up and excited, and asks his mother to buy him a laptop computer. His mother, Nneora (Nkechi Nweje) wants to know why he wants the laptop. “I’m in contact with this company abroad that will make me so rich that I will turn this village into a big city…we will be filthy rich, Mama.” He says. Mothers and their sons, she immediately builds hope upon the promise of her son’s dream.
Everywhere in life where you need people to do your will, start with one person to believe in your dream, in your rhetoric. Only one person. Nneora is her son’s first convert, and she takes the hope and the promise of her son on the road, to the community. “My son Eze, is working for a big, big company and they will pay him in dollars, pound sterling, and euro…and let me advise you if you see my son respect him, obey him and all his commandments, so when this money comes, he’ll remember you. We’ll change your destiny.” So Nneora says to a woman she meets in an alley. She says so to the Butchers and gets away with choice meat. She says so too, to the market women and gets away with a bag full of food; so she says to the townfolks who sent their boys to bring firewood, and girls to wash Eze’s dirty clothes and sweep his yard.
Eze and his mother’s life is changing by the day and as the news of Eze’s business grows. “Money has not entered, and my name has changed like this, what if the money comes?” Nneora at one point admired the change of her status in the local society with the prospect of her son’s expected windfall. The King gets wind of the opportunity and becomes immediately interested. He even wants his Elders to invest in Eze’s company as he does so generously. As a sweetener, he marries his daughter, the Princess to Eze, just so his family will be part of the promised riches.
The beauty of this movie is the fact that an entire Kingdom, its people, including the royal family have come to believe in the future they knew nothing about, but blindly follow the pure rhetoric of Eze. “The amount of money I will make, I will transform this village!” He boasts in front of the King and his Elders. The burden then falls on Eze and Nneora, his mother to prove that the money will come from abroad. One day soon.
Months and months went by and her son’s promise to the community about getting rich, and the man where she borrowed money for the laptop, has not been repaid. And most people in the community start requesting the return of their investments. The Queen too, who initially was happy for the union of her daughter with Eze, fearing that the whole premise of getting rich is a fluke, asks the King to get her daughter back to the palace. The King sent his guards to bring back his daughter. Then comes Nze Ndu (Emeka Udeolisa) who loaned the money for the computer and demands the return of his money, even as he takes away the two goats a townfolk brings for Eze’s pepper-soup. Eze and his mother are heartbroken and they become the laughing stock of the town.
Nneora indeed suffers doubt as time goes by without the money her son promises, and with fear in her eyes, albeit hopeful, says to her son, “Eze, I don’t want trouble…I want this money drop so that I can pay Nze and I take my share.” “Tucker: The Man and His Dream.” Day in, day out, Eze remains glued to his laptop. He has a dream. But human condition is weak and faltering. We do waiver in our faiths, beliefs, and desires. Sometimes Eze wanders away in disillusionment, and toys with the idea of abandoning the project. Who wouldn’t? He’s human. Even the prophets, Moses and Jesus, at one point in their lives, doubted themselves. We’ve read about the ‘Doubting Thomas,’ haven’t we? Eze keeps on cracking at the keyboard. Cracking and banging at it. Sometimes feverishly, sometimes drowsily and sometimes angrily. Then this one day, with one single crack, his chics come home to roost. Voila, Eze gets paid in major western currencies! He gets rich.
Am not going to concern myself in this review as to what Eze did for the ‘Nyahun Nyahun’ company to get paid so much money, lest I give away the story in its entirety, nor how he spends his money, but to elaborate on the moral of the story. The moral of this story is fairly simple: Audacity of hope. Eze’s hope defies reason. We should consider his dariness in the pursuit to get rich; we take into account his boldness and fearlessness in pursuing his dream, a dream only he and his mother genuinely believe. But we do admire how he brazenly convinced a dormant society with his rhetoric of hope and how the Kingdom become alive and hopeful, by giving them something to look forward. The central message here is hope, for it unifies all the elements, characters, storyline and the cinematography towards a common goal-hope.
This film could have been a sleeper if the writer and director have not given us the two remarkable characters, Yul Edochie and Nkechie Nwoke. They give us characters not out to scam the Kingdom but to provide them with hope as they had never had. Nkechie Nweje’s performance here will make Patient Ozworko jealous because either she must have studied Mama G’s performance, and acting nuances or she has natural acting pique of her own in on-screen interaction with other actors. Nkechie helps to forward the story so compellingly that we sometimes forget the severe theme of daring, courage, and hope and wander into the territory of comedy. This is a serious story for the determined mind with a purpose. Watch it.
I mustn’t forget to notice the title song: ‘Fada Fada’ at the end of the film signifies the joy and happiness of the hopeful man when once he realizes his dream. The town folks dancing, eating and throwing out money at each other is the ultimate realization of any determined heart for his or her people. The song sums up everything man can ever hope for.