Ulzee Films Presents: Senanu Gbauewu (Emeka), Rita Dominic (Kofo), Nuella Ujubuigbo (Onyii), Beatrice Mulba (Tina). Story/Screenplay, Tchidi Cikere/Nnedi Okorafor; Director of Photography, Chigozie Onoh; Editor, Jahbless Ukaegbu; Producer, Azuka Odunukwe; Director, Tchidi Chikere.
Wrapped In Magic is wrapped in calamity. Emeka tries to test the gravity of the love his five years married wife has for him so; he camouflages as a mystery admirer with whom she communicates with on the internet. He blasts at her every time he comes home, and he blames her for everything; from the upkeep of his house to the dinner table. They had been romantic and in love when they got married but this five years without a child has left Emeka sour, and Onyii (Nuella Ujubuigbo), with pillow soaked tears, at night in bed, for not having a child for Emeka.
On the other side of town, Emeka has a child by a feisty woman, Kofo (Rita Dominic) who seems capable of holding Emeka by his nose around a living room. She and her son soon come home to share a roof with Onyii in Emeka’s household. As Emeka could say so at length, he turns his home into a war front.
These two, the wife and son’s mother stand up to each other every day, every time. However, the least chance Onyii, could get and be by herself, she’ll be on the internet with her secret admirer both shuttling messages between them. In solace she will pour over the web time on end, hugs it, spills her heart to it and craves for this lover to hold her in his arms, make love to him like no one will and take her to a fairyland where only the two of them could live ever after.
As the tension in her marital home mounts, so the love affair with the internet blind date flowers. They start talking about moving in together, and this gets her so elated that even kofo who hates seeing her happy, becomes jealous. In the last message they had interchanged, she asks her admirer what color of clothes he’ll be wearing when they meet. “All White”, the message glares on the screen. Onyii gets off the taxi and stands to wait at the appointed place, then she sees a man dressed in all white across the street from her and rushes to him. In the middle of the street where she’s standing few feet away, her point of view is Emeka, dressed in all white.
An oncoming van hits her as she gasps for breath from seeing that it had been her husband she’s been making love to all the while. Emeka leaves her lying in the middle of the road and ran from the scene and goes back home to Kofo, disheveled. At home with lots of regrets he tells Kofo how he’s discovered his true love in Onyii. At the hospital, the administration is looking for the responsible party for Onyii as they are about to do surgery to stop her internal bleeding and when Emeka gets informed about this, he rushes to the hospital and meets Onyii wheeled to the theater. Surgery is successful, but Kofo sneaks into her recovery room with an attempt to kill her when the hospital staff catches her. However, Onyii dies at the hospital in the absence of Emeka.
What I believe didn’t do much to the development or progress of the story is the feisty Kofo plot, for the dramatic arc neither improves nor does anything to the story. We would have still enjoyed the story even as straight-laced. What Wrapped In Magic, though the title doesn’t do justice to the story and therefore cannot review it from that standpoint, is only telling us, is a doomsday story of modern man. The tragedy that hangs over us when we misuse our modern day technical gadgets. Don’t watch this movie in August when the seven days rain sets in in Sub-Sahara, with the rain and all, it will depress you.