Blue Rain Entertainment, B.T Media Cameroon present Syndy Emande (Sadrine Mbassy), John Dumelo (Endeley Christian), Nchifor Valery (Dr. Agwe Stephen), Alenne Menget (Mr. Muende Mathias), Nabila Rodriguez (Patricia Mbole). Executive Producer, Producer, Synde Emande; Director of Photography, Tebo Njei; Director, Anurin Nwunembom; Screenplay, Tebo Njei, Anurin Nwunembom, Grace Namondo. © 2020
Broken presents a tragic character. A femme Fatale. The film opens with Sadrine running and scooping her wedding gown, I guess from the alter or the wedding itself. At the same time, national radio airs news of the wedding taking place as she runs away. She gets into a BMW sports SUV and drives away while drinking straight from a bottle of Glenfiddich wine. At this point, I’m thinking she’s taking a suicide trip but stalled, not long afterward obviously out of gas in a forested area. A ‘Bushman,’ Endeley Christian (John Dumelo) takes her to his humble wayside abode.
Syndy Emade’s A Man For The Weekend (2017) and Broken (2020) have the same DNA. In the earlier film, Emade borrows a man for the weekend to present to her mother. In the latter, she kidnaps the Bushman from the forest to submit him to her father, Mr. Muende Mathias (Alenne Menget), for a husband. We are not witnesses to Sadrine’s previous marriages. We do, however, witness the groom on his wedding day, having it out with an older man, the reason she runs away.
Both films have one common thread: to get the parent off her back. It was the mother in …The weekend, here it is, her ailing father. Sadrine’s mother died a few years ago, and she becomes the mother, the daughter, the caretaker, and a business manager of a company tittering at the point of collapse, all at once. Such is the overload of responsibility for a twenty-something woman. As drunk as Sadrine was, Endeley Christian’s muscular built impress her at first sight. She proposes to him to marry her.
Sadrine didn’t take long to marry this reluctant bushman-hunter and kidnap him to present him to her father. She finds that the said bushman-hunter was once a corporate executive in the city but went off the bridge and was sent to prison. Sadrine believes she can make use of his talent to rescue her father’s ailing company. There’s a snag, though. The Mathias family doctor, Agwe Stephen (Nchifor Valery), is desperately in love with Sadrine and is jealous of Endeley Christian, who has come between him and Sadrine.
When Sadrine brings Endeley home, and to the company, he quickly proves his worth, despite Dr. Agwe’s opposition. The company is turned around, and Sadrine is happy. At one point, she confesses to Endeley. “I have become myself because of you.” However, Dr. Agwe, ‘Naughty’ relentless pressure to date Sadrine creates a problem for Endeley as he catches them (Dr. Agwe and Sadrine) kissing. He is unsure if Sadrine could be trusted, then he runs into Patricia late in the office. He’s coerced into having affairs with her. “I have to go home now,” says Endeley. “What about me?” Patricia asks. “From now on, it’s you and me.” The next time Sadrine and Endeley meet:
Endeley, “We have to talk. This is it for me.”
“Can I at least know why?”
Endeley’s phone rings.
“Do I know her? We could renew our vows.”
“Why not with Naughty?”
“For Christ’s sake, he is only a family doctor.”
“Yes…that was examining your lips in the car.”
“You brought out the vulnerable part of me, with your tolerance and sweetness, then you turn out to leave?”
The Muende Mathias family has an ugly family history. Mr. Muende Mathias was sleeping with Patricia’s mother when she served in the household. A critical mind could reason why Sadrine feels too uncomfortable in the presence of her assistant, Patricia. Patricia always has to babysit, “clean up, cover up for gaps, take the blame…and fall,” for anything that goes wrong with Sadrine’s happiness. Either Sadrine or Mr. Mathias never appreciates her. See how she panics in front of Mr. Muende after Sadrine leaves the building driving away.
Mr. Muende, “In three hours, I don’t see Sassy (Sadrine), say bye to your job.
Patricia, “But Sir, I’m trying to….”
“Fine! Fine! Do more. Now leave this place, stupid!”
In another instance when Patricia would tell Endeley about Dr. Agwe and Sadrine:
“So that you know, this job is all I have.”
Endeley, “I won’t tell anyone.”
Patricia has her cup full of disgrace, humiliation, and subjugation from both Mr. Muende and Sadrine. Even as she tries hard to attend to Sadrine’s every beck and call, she dismisses her as “sneaking and snooping” around. Patricia thinks it’s time to fight back. “The infallible Mr. Mathias.” Patricia starts as she sits facing Sadrine. “Mother was his relief spot after he and your mother had their fights…you have subjected me to the same servitude.” In the last scene, Patricia tells Sadrine that she has lost Endeley to her, which she jumps on Patricia. She kills Sadrine.
John Dumelo’s excellent performance in A Northern Affair (2014) may have contributed to his gaining the gig on Emade’s Broken. I like the pastoral setting in A Northern Affair, the rustic feel of the countryside, and all. John Dumelo (Manuel Quagraine) and Joselyn Dumas (Esaba Jomo) had a love-hate relationship and little arrogance in Manuel. Esaba had taken the Northern assignment as a nurse to get away from an abusive husband, Mark Jomo (John Germain). Sadrine runs from a groom she catches on her wedding day having sex with another man and falls in the arms of Endeley. Manuel had a brawl with Jomo in A Northern Affair, as Endeley does with Dr. Agwe Stephen in Broken.
I found more than ten titles about ‘broken,’ but all with adjectival phrases, like Broken Season, Broken Chain, Broken Walls, Broken Kingdom, Broken Home. I’m lucky to find one as a stand-alone adjective. Broken as the narrative did not logically flow. Sadrine manufactures a pastor suddenly, like abracadabra, or magic from right behind the house to conduct the wedding. And characters are not steadfast in their commitments. Sadrine kisses Agwe while she’s in a said marriage and sleeping with Endeley. Then Patricia (Rodriguez Nabila) sleeps with Endeley. If the movie had continued for another thirty minutes, we would witness an orgy.
There are some aspects in films like an unnoticeable motif that you won’t let them go by. In the scene when Sadrine enters Endeley’s room in the middle of the night. She couldn’t sleep because of the pain in her back like a “train runs over her.” Endeley is wearing a T-shirt, written at the back facing the camera, ‘Finally.’ That is the consummation scene when Endeley and Sadrine have sex. The motif, ‘Finally’ tells us that after all the rigmarole, Endeley and Sadrine finally get to have sex just that one time. But the script never gives her character a happy moment in the film. Instead, the script leaves her broken, her head bludgeoned and splattered with blood. Little dark.