A Purplepine Production Present, Ramsey Noah (Alex), Omotola Jalade Ekeinde (Jina), John Dumelo (Jason), Peace Awak (Juliet), Ngozi Ezeonu (Mrs. Jibuno), Alex Ayalogu (Mr. Jibuno. Producer, Vivian Ejike; Directors, Lancelot Oduwa Imasueh, Ikechukwu Onyeka. (C2010)
You good for nothing bastard, you ingrate! Yells, Mr. Jibuno (Alex Ayalogu) at Alex (Ramsey Noah). Mr. Jibuno to Mrs. Jibuno (Ngozi Ezeonu), so you’re standing between your bastard son and me? (Mr. Jibuno to Mrs.Jibuno). Haven’t I told you not to interfere when am disciplining that boy? railed Mr. Jibuno.
You are too strict on that boy, you’ll make him lose his self-confidence, says Mrs. Jibuno (Ngozi Ezeonu).
So is the gruesome background history and relationship of Alex (Ramsey Noah) and his stepfather. The same reason he left home and never looked back, but carries the bruised confidence, lack of love and trust in him wherever he goes, even in his relationship with his intended wife, Jina (Omotola Jalade Ekeinde). Alex’s stepfather violently slaps and abused his mother, and he and his stepfather nearly murdered each other that night. Leave my house, you bastard son! He called Alex. Alex storms out of his home into the world, his home experience with his stepfather crystalized into a single storm raging in his heart. Alex steps into the outside world with a tortured soul. The childhood drama with his stepfather robs him of his self-confidence. He feels unappreciated, unaccepted and left with a dented self-esteem. The abusive treatment forms in him the rage, anger and isolated storm that he metes on the best of love and care he could find in his life.
Alex and Jina relationships are a supposedly classic urban type, with lots of kisses, smooching, ‘baby, baby.’ Affluent and rosy and as an intended family home. Jina, hopeful of the fact, she has a wealthy young man of her dream who is about to marry her and live life happily ever after. Boy, was she wrong? Jina’s relationship with Alex is horrendous, violent, abusive, and scary, and tortured. At a certain point in the film the link reminds me of the lyrics in Diana Krall’s Peel Me A Grape: Hop when I holler, Skip when I snap, when I say, “do it.” Jump to it. You get the picture of the relationship between Alex and Jina. Jina is so terrified in Alex’s household that, his joke falls flat because Jina is afraid to laugh and not to laugh, or to laugh out loud in case her laughter offends Alex. She jumps up at Alex’s grunts. She smiles at Alex’s jokes even when it isn’t funny. Jina could be beaten, locked up in the bathroom, beaten up with leather belts, just because she takes a gift of a box of chocolates from an old friend. In the middle of the story, Jina is fed up and breaks away. Now you think Alex is going to murder Jina but no. He realizes that by Jina leaving him, she’ll be taking away a good chunk of his remaining confidence.
In a moment of truth:
Don’t let my weakness tear us apart, Jina…I messed up. I messed up real bad. Alex says, with tears in his eyes as Jina struggles to pack her things out of Alex’s house. My stepfather drained the confidence in me, and my ex-fiance removed my trust, but you Jina brought a new meaning to my entire life, my last of happiness.
One could think Alex is going to change, but soon after, he reads in Allure magazine an article that Jina supposedly writes about their relationship, then the dam breaks. Alex goes into a convulsive tantrum: You crafty, slimy, bitch! He calls her. Jina runs from him and falls into the arms of Jason (John Dumelo), whom she meets at a group marriage counseling session, and before long, they engage. But when Jason and Alex meet in the hospital bedroom, where their sick mother admits, Jina realizes that Alex and Jason are blood brothers, from the same mother.
Ramsey Noah, as Danny and Omotola Jalade Ekeinde as Mary, meet on the set of the 2003 production, When Love Dies. It is also a violent and abusive relationship between Omotola as a Liberian refugee in Nigeria, who is whisked away from the refugee camp to serve a Colonel who tries to rape her but ends owning her, anyway. She falls for a solo nightclub singer, Danny (Ramsey Noah), but it turns out, the Colonel is the long-lost father of Danny. An irony, ha?
Private Storm is a beautiful story especially when the line up of well-placed actors and actress play the lead role. I admire Ramsey Noah and how well he walked into the part of a psychopathic character with a disturbed mind. Alex’s hands tremble, his lips quiver and the rum and ice in the tumbler rattle. He’s out of form when he gets that way, often suspicious of Jina, and will attack her with such fury that leaves the poor woman wimping like a puppy. Omotola too cowers so naturally in his presence, that sometimes I felt sorry for her to be in that abusive relations. Her fear of Alex in the home takes all color out of her.
Private Storm could be a social and psychological study of abusive relationships. This film is a straightforward drama and therefore wouldn’t want to go into a diatribe as to why women stay in abusive and violent relationships. Alex showers Jina with lots of flowers and gifts; opens up a chic clothing store in an upscale district, buys her a car and engages her with a diamond ring. Well and good. Alex impresses her with goodies for Jina not to see the demon raging in him. Her world must begin and end with him and him alone. Jina mustn’t speak to no one, not have a girlfriend, do not speak to strange men, and she mustn’t go anywhere without his knowledge. If she ever crosses those lines, Jina is in a deep s***. She’s in a danger of being beaten and locked up. She has no freedom. One must ask then, why is Jina stuck in this verbal and physical relationship with this fellow? You ponder.
A strange feeling came over me after I watched this film ends. Maybe, I appreciate the ending when Alex ends in the wheelchair which as he speaks in the camera, tells of a universal truth: uncontrollable rage and anger could only lead man to his damnation:
…A perfect recipe for disaster (meaning uncontrolled rage). I should have let them be. I blew up my chances (Weeps). No, No, big boys don’t cry.
However, this story didn’t escape the usual Nollywood resolutions. Man and woman sitting in the living room, telephone rings, Mama is in the hospital, on her deathbed and confesses to Occult; a long-lost son comes back home to reunite with the dying father, only to find out he’s not the actual son. Here, Alex and Jason meet at the bedside of their sick mother in the hospital, where Jina discovers that both her fiance and ex-fiance were blood brothers. A good percentage of Nollywood movies end this way. When a film covers three-quarters of the runtime, and the audiences start to leave the theater, they’ve already assumed the end of the story. Now that is ‘cliche.’ We need surprises but not convoluted or soapy ones.