Neighborhood Films presents Alex Ekubo (Tim Robert), Ik Ogbonna (George), Bimbo Manuels (Dr. Karen), Haille Sunney (Reno), Loveth Muna (Jojo). Producers, B. T. Thomas, Elung Brenda; Associate Producer, John Fashanu; Exec. Producer, Cynthia N. Ossai; Written/Director, B.T. Thomas. © 2018
I spent almost an hour looking at the gray screen in front of me after the last credit rolled on A Way Back Home. I did not know what narrative category I should grant this film. It has a story but not as unique as I wished it had. Okay, Dr. Karen (Bimbo Manuels) misdiagnosed Tim Robert (Alex Ecubo). Or intentionally misdiagnosed his patient. Dr. Karen says his cancer is metastasizing to every part of his body, and he could die at any time. So he wants to save his family the pain. B.T. Thomas, the writer, goes for an identity swap scheme.
Tim had had the honest cold feet to tell his wife his medical condition. He had to fake his demise and nominate a wanton friend, a rough-rider, to impersonate him. George to take his place as a husband of his wife. That is how silly men sometimes get for love’s sake. As you did not buy into the new face of the husband, so was I.
Your Name (2016) is an animated film. The two teenagers in the film believed they are swapping bodies; In Big (2018), Tom Hanks changes his body from youth to adult and to childhood again by a single wish at the game fare. In A Way Back Home, Tim Robert (Alex Ekubo) and Dr. Karen stage an accident in which his face is smudged by a truck. Surgery is required. He comes back with a different look, yet his wife accepts the new face of (Tim/George) and a new attitude of a husband.
I mean Alex Ekubo, (Bryan) in A Man For The Weekend. He is hired by Candy (Synde Emade) to play the perfect boyfriend and soon-to-be husband of Candy for the weekend to her pestering mother, just for her to get off her back. But by then, Candy has naturally got hooked to him, lover boy Bryan. He is handsome as they come, and here he is a lovers’ tonic. Candy takes a sip, and she is all for it.
A Way Back Home is, I must say, not so tight. To the naked eye of the audience, the film puts it in our faces that it can steal our intelligence right from our eyes and get away with it. Even Tim’s daughter is afraid to come close to this new face of a father. As little as she is, she could not believe it is her beloved father. No one could believe that the new image on the screen is Tim. Yet, we get along with the storyline hoping for a break in the story. No.
Dr. Karen and Tim did not plot an excellent ‘body change.’ Whatever motivation for Dr. Karen, either for money or whatnot, to have caused him to commit such ethical, medical transgressions that got him close to killing himself with alcohol and hallucinogens is not made clear. Dr. Karen sells himself short. The next time we met him, he’s in an enclosure, a darkened room of ashtrays full of cigarette butts. Mostly, half-smoked. He has become regretful and suicidal to himself. Guilt. Up to the time the movie ended, we never heard of him. A hanging plot.
A Way Back Home resembles Being Mrs. Elliot (2014) since both themes deal with ‘identity change.’ Movies based on Switching Identities, Body Swaps, and Life-Swapping can be critical. Your intent is to make-believe film. Being Mrs. Elliot has a logical and believable plotline that we can relate to. Mrs. Elliot, chasing after a husband, then got into a gruesome accident. Her riding partner Fisayo (Uru Eke), to whom Mrs. Elliot-Lara (Omoni Oboli) rented her wedding ring, got her face burnt in the wreck. When the husband gets to the accident scene, he could only make out the wedding band and therefore assumes Uru Eke to be the ‘burnt out face’ of his wife. It is plausible to say that Being Mrs. Elliot has a believable plotline. I can accept that. Won’t you?
Faces like Alex Ekubo, though young and early in the Nollywood film industry, cannot be duplicated or dressed in any dramatic form to let the audience buy into it easily. It has to be cosmetically done. Nollywood tried dressing Rita Dominic’s face in The Meeting; I did not admire the art department for the work on her face in The Meeting; the clay was falling off. Tim/George, head swap here doesn’t quite sit well. The latest George is huskier and does not have the proclivity to neatly fit into Alex. As a matter of fact, one can’t hang his hat on him, playing the role perfectly.
George brings new character traits the lanky Alex never had. George smokes; Tim never did. New Tim is a horse in bed and a womanizer; Old Tim was constantly tired in bed. The situation worsens when George gets Reno (Haille Sunney) pregnant after nine years of asking Tim for another child. Now here is the reason she’ll keep the new Tim. His daughter, Jojo (Loveth Muna), won’t even get close to the new Tim. That is not identity change; that is identity swap.
Tim’s medical condition didn’t show in his disposition. He didn’t deteriorate. And even he pulls a fuss with George in the stand-off, he shows strength. A dilapidated make-believe condition of Tim shall have told the audience the diagnosis was a fact. If not, we can’t pit for Tim’s character in this film. He connived only to take a hike from his wife but later regretted it and wanted to force his way back home. Tim is a fraudulent character.
Being Mrs. Elliot is perfect in its plots and mechanics of achieving production goals. Mrs. Elliot becomes delusional, and it is easy to accept Isawaru Ay (Ayo Makun), the native herbalist, as a husband. Founders, keepers. That is natural. Then too, Fisayo (Uru Eke) gets so burnt and wakes up from the surgery, delusional, with Bill (Majid Michel) standing over her and ready to take her home. That, too, is a plausible plot mechanic. Naturally, that can happen in real life.
Overall, A Way Back Home is beautiful. But Tim’s character is fraudulent. Yet if I could choose a scene to properly evaluate would be the grandstand between George and Tim in the container yard. The scene’s dialogue seems staged. There were time lapses between exchanges, like actors on cues. One could pepper up such sets with overlapping conversations and banging on walls.
Tim’s lame final word: “When the child is born, you can have the baby. I can live with the pain, but you will never ever take my wife.” What folly of a character? Tim may find his way back home but not to Reno’s heart anymore.