Yvonne Okoro (Tatiana), Tbi Bright (Yolanda), Beverly Afoglo (Kondra), Zyall Lydia Zuh (Zila), Mzbell (Serena), Clara Zeta Galega (Kristine), John Dumelo (Brad), Edie Watson (Tony), Ajatey Anang (Hanks), Prince David Osei (Quincy), Timothy Bentum (Wayne), Eunice Ohene (Bibi). Director/Screenwriter, Pascal Amanfo; Producers, Abdul Salam Mumuni/Kinsley Okereke; Director of Photography, Adas Umar, Story, Abdul Salam Mumuni.
It took almost two hours of screen time for six middle class and well-to-do, urban women of Accra, for one of them to get to the altar and swear allegiance in marriage. Woman! My daughter called me her husband just when she had barely spoken. That could be a woman’s most coveted and cherished occupation that fascinate mankind. The woman I’ve been married to for almost thirty years, proposed marriage to me and literally took my hands to the altar. In hindsight, I was coerced into marriage, and was I ready? I don’t know but am still here with her, to date.
We are introduced to six well-to-do women, all from their early thirties to late, and all of them spinsters, in Single at 40: Tatiana (Yvonne Okoro), a self-owned grocer, single; Tbi Bright (Yolanda), rich, very rich inheritor, single; Beverly Afoglo (Kondra), a Unit Commander, Anti-Crime Division in the Ghanian police force, single; Zila (Zyall Lydia Zuh), a wedding planner in her own right, single; Serena (Mzbell), single; Kristina (Ciara Zeta Galega), single.
They are professionals in their own rights, who singularly pay their tabs in restaurants and take vacations abroad all by themselves. One thing they miss in their lives though are grownups, big nagging boys in their cribs, with who they can go to bed with and wake up with, fuss and fight with, be proud of, while exhibiting their thirty carats wedding bands to their friends, as the greatest thing God has ever done for them. Their presence can sometimes be heartaches, but by God, they love them, they cherish them and go after them.
Tatiana: “For crying out loud, how long have we been dating? I’m tired of excuses for not being able to commit. For crying out loud, how long have we been dating… I’m tired of sucking on your…. (She shows her, finger) if you want, put a diamond ring on it!”
Story proper starts when an intruder, a disgruntled girlfriend interrupts the wedding ceremony of Zilla (Zynell Lydia Zuh), and she passes out. I expected this scene to be more hilarious if the intruder had shot the gun in the air, so we see everyone falling over each other to clear the area.
The six ladies were each disappointed in their relationships in different ways. The narrator, Yolanda (Tbi Bright) couldn’t get the scammer Hank (Adjety Anong), to put a ring on it, and keeps running away from her after she lost to him $300,000; Serena (Mzbell) the top-class actress is duped by her director, even when she’s pregnant for him. Brad (John Dumelo) doesn’t really think that much of Kondra (Beverly Afoglo) anymore and matter of fact, her presence annoys him. Categorically, we see each of these six ladies with their Knights in shining armors in restaurants, at dinner tables, in their living rooms and bedrooms being disappointed.
This story is more about Tatiana than for the rest of the brood of spinsters. In a sense, the rest of the characters in the story are used as exposition tools, and that is to put beef on the bones of the story. Tatiana, (Yvonne Okoro), in essence, must have top billing in the story. Her character has depth when the relationship with her daughter, Bibi (Eunice Ohene), and Tony (Edie Watson) is laid bare. She has a history. Her monologue in the living room in front of her friends is sobering to the immediate audience (friends), and to the audience without. That scene and the ensuing monologue sums up the theme of the story:
After all past disappointments with men, her prayers come to center on celebrity footballers and as her wishes, longings, and hopes could so have it, a celebrated footballer barges into her off the beating path grocery one afternoon and her life is about to change. Tatiana’s relationship with the new boyfriend Tony is just about to bloom when she opens door to her 15 years old daughter. By the look of her sour blackface, she’s a bad girl. Tatiana wants her gone before she causes her ill-luck, and she, therefore, refuses to introduce her 15 years old wayward daughter to Tony before she blows her bubble, in this monologue:
A friend asks, “So you didn’t introduce her?”
Tatiana, “Nope.”
Another friend, “That was so wrong.”
“This is the first time I’ve got something worth fighting for and am not about to give it up…I told myself, I swore to myself that I won’t lose it. Not even for a daughter…By my opening that I have fifteen years old somewhere? Oh, I’ve got it! So, it is alright you guys riding classy cars, your careers in cruise control, got a good man in your lives, while I’m stuck in that shit hole…my ass stuck in the grocery store because I couldn’t finish university.”
Her friends in the room are askance.
Tatiana, “I don’t care what you feel, I don’t care what you think, but I need a man. A man I could go home with, A man that could spend the rest of his life with me. I am fucking desperate!”
Her voice cracks and trails, “And until you find that man, I tell you, my sisters, no matter what bed you woke up on, your lives will be incomplete.”
In the ensuing scene between her and her daughter, is another memorable scene:
Bibi, “Can I help you cook, Mama?”
Tatiana, “Tony is coming over for lunch, and I will like for you to lock yourself up in your room.”
Bibi, (obedient) “I will do anything you say, Mama.”
Tatiana, “Stop trying to make me like you. I can’t and I won’t. No matter how hard you try…and you know what? I’ve always thought you don’t exist.”
Bibi, “You know I was waiting for you to give me my ticket. (Cries) I swear, I will solemnly swear, mother, that in sickness and in health, you will never see me again. But I won’t. You know why? I have always thought the day will come when you will deny me. But no matter how hard a mother’s arm is, it is the safest place in the world. (rushes to her mother and falls in her arm and both cry). Why can’t you love me? Why?”
Pascal brings the story home when we witness the fallout scene between Tatiana and Tony over the attempted rape of her daughter Bibi. Tatiana’s greatest fear comes to reality when in her tirade, she tells her friends how so many times she had come close to happiness and it had always slipped away. The presence of Bibi in the story is a catalyst for trouble. In the scene that echos All About Eve (1950), we witness how dishonest Tony is, but of course, Tatiana put a seed of mischief in his head when she says Bibi has got two abortions behind her, never denies any man that ever walks up to her, and she’s only a relative to her. She had reduced the worth of her daughter, just so she wins Tony’s love. What an irony!
Not by rote but by ingenuity, the writer’s introductory wedding scene that was interrupted was made up for by the successful wedding of one of the broods to Kristina Adams by Quincy (Prince David Osei) in the denouement. Dear viewers, if you watched this movie without appreciating the scenes and relationship between Tatiana and her daughter, you’ve missed the crux of Single at 40. Matter of fact this movie should premier on Mother’s Day all through Ghallywood and Nollywood. And for you the performing art teachers at universities, please, I beg, use this story to tell dramatic instances between mothers and daughters. There’s a lot in life to learn from.