Leah Foundations presents Femi Adebayo (Kayode), Teniola (Omowunmi Dada), Ishat Dalhatu (Joke Silva), Ali Nuhu (Faisal Dalhatu), Bolaji Oba (Ibrahim Dalhatu), Yamisi Gborbarun (Toyin Abrahim), Halima (Yvonne Jegede Tawo), Bimbo Akintola (Labaki Aliyu), Magaji Mijinyawa (Uncle Idi), Kayode Alaiya (Akanabi Aliyu), Salewa (Adeola Olayinipekum). Director, Kunle Afolayan; Director of Photography, Tokar McBabor; Script Supervisor, Gbenga Ojerinde; Producer, Femi Adebayo. © 2020
Diamonds in the Sky is really about three diamonds in Nigerian society. In a microcosmic way, three women represent the entire females: big or small, rich or poor, old or young. The film is more a promotional piece, throwing caution to the wind, rallying cry out loud to the general female populace the impending deluge of cancer among the womanhood.
Teniola (Omowunmi Dada), a middle-class university student in a hostel, has the prospect of graduating from college and marrying her sweetheart, Kayode (Femi Adebayo). Then, Labaki, an imperfect homemaker with two growing kids and a pestering taxi-driver husband. All Akanabi Aliyu (Kayode Alaiya) wants is his dinner, his sex, and he watches his soccer on tv. At the beginning of the film, we are introduce
d to Ishat Dalhatu (Joke Silver). She just got off the plane from an extended business trip from China.
Ishat, Labaki, and Teniola seemingly have brighter lives ahead to look forward to, graduation and a prospective marriage, two growing kids in the household of the Aliyus, and Ishat looking to expand her tin can factory to stand the trends of the time. But secretly, Teniola frequently wakes with severe stomach pains and a Virginia bleeding, which her friends quickly dismiss as having done an abortion. When she passes out and ended in a hospital, the doctor arranges her to another hospital. Kayode instead takes her to his cousin’s clinic, who diagnosed her as in stage three with ovarian cancer and would never conceive.
Uncle Idi (Magaji Mijinyawa) did not only keep this medical information to himself but shares it with Kayode’s parents. And now Kayode’s mother doesn’t want to accept Teniola for her son. Halima, a board room friend, helps comfort Teniola. She advises her not to go to her parents in Lagos but stay and seek a second medical opinion. They walk into Leah Center, and…
In bed, Labaki could turn away from Akanabi and rebuffs his sexual gestures. She secretly endures pains in her chest. One day, her husband, Akanabi, sees her naked chest and notices the lump on her breast. He is in panic as she bursts to cry. This had been the reason she refuses his sexual gestures. She hates the fact that she’ll soon die and leave her children. They arrange for a herbalist to help. The herbalist turns out to be a fraud. They learn about Leah Center, and they hurry there.
In her shower, Ishat stands in a pool of blood from her womb in her immaculate bathroom. She is presently split between business and her health. Still, after preliminary medical consultations, the doctor did not fool around but tells her the danger she’s in with ovarian cancer. The doctor rebuffed her intent to go abroad and instead seek local attention. For her status, she tries to avoid scandal. She picks a prescription from a drugstore one day and consciously takes a flyer home with her. She checks in at Leah Center.
Leah Center is an NGO entity that establishes a foundation exclusively for women’s health. Madam Ishat has had cold feet the first time she visited the center. What different choice does she have? After a helluva fight with her late husband’s brother and board of directors, she runs along; turns over the company’s management to her son Faisal (Ali Nuhu). She must be feeling hopeless. Teniola and Kayode have parted since his mother disapproves of her medical condition at dinner with his family. Labaki’s husband Akanabi is about to commit suicide when he found that the one week visit his wife had to the village was to spend time with the fraudulent herbalist. Just so she got cured of cancer.
Such is the topsy-turvy the life of these three women is turned into in Diamonds in the sky. They are basking in the glow of life from our viewpoint of them, but it is not all right with them. Teniola has to be rushed to the hospital for the agonizing pain she suffers. Labaki has a lump in her breast, and Ishat discharges blood and gives out an unpleasant smell from her private parts. All of them make a visit to Leah Center and have a diagnosis of their cases. Teniola is misdiagnosed by Kayode’s cousin. He doesn’t want Kayode and Teniola together.
Madam Ishat has cervical cancer stage 2B. She had a hysterectomy done, and she lived a long and full life. Dorcas couldn’t keep her breast! She had mastectomy and chemotherapy and was declared cancer-free. She lived to see her children grow into fine young girls and boys.
In his writerly choice and manner, the scribe put together a story with three distinct plotlines, independent of each other and all in different economic stations. Still, all are plunged into making decisions caused by being afflicted with a disease. He manages the story strands to summarily bring them stage by stage, shot by shot, under the roof of Leah Center. You may wonder how I can analyze this style of writing. The writer isn’t ambiguous in presenting his characters. They are every day, next-door neighbors. I perceive it in the dialogue; the seamless interchange of scenes from one location to the other. Remarkable!
The movie achieves its level of ambition by concluding what it was set out to do. It tells that no herbalist (Labaka), off-beaten path clinics (Kayode’s cousin’s clinic), and shame could save anyone. That having cancer shouldn’t be a death sentence, as his characters feared. Madam Ishat’s cold feet on the first visit to Leah Center) when she had to run away, fearing the scandal that she had cancer. And 2, early detection of the disease could save lives. This is a telltale narrative about cancer, to boot. On that note, we leave these three characters with, Shining bright like a diamond/We’re beautiful like diamonds in the sky/Shine bright like a diamond in the sky/Shine bright like a diamond in the sky-Rihanna
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