Sam’s Production present Richard Mofe Dimajo (Mr. Anthony Lima), Ermelinde Simo Ska Jing ( Mrs. Loveline Lima), Ireti Doyle (Dr. Benedicta), Alumme Menget (Maxwell Nguni), Syndy Emade (Mrs. Ndive Laura), Lucie Memba Boss (Mrs. Memba Boss), Memba Goodwill Awantu (Dr. Ndive Frank), Otia Vitalis (Mr. Lima’s Boss) Merits Kayla Fongua (Nabila Lima). Producer, Sakah Antoine, Ermelinde Simo Sakah Jing; Director, Anurin Nwunembom, Musing Derrick; Screenplay, Anurin Nwunembom, Musing Derrick Tenn, Forkwa Babiila; Director of Photography, Tabot Rene. ©2020
A movie called Therapy is a bland title. In other words, the title isn’t inviting. It is like a youtube infomercial. If this movie wasn’t listed on Netflix and Mofi Dimajo’s face was signed to it, me being healthy and all, shall pass by it in a breeze. I could assume it to be one of those youtube productions doctors explain for an entire evening of your weekend time symptoms of depression or mental health: mood, cognitive, oversleep, non-sleep, fatigue, no appetite, overindulging, no exercise. Remarks: money-back guarantee. In five days, so-so-medicine, discovered in Switzerland mountains, by Dr. Fraud III., will change your life forever. Yari-yari.
I watched Alexx Ekubo walking his way back home after making a foolish and poor choice in A Way Back Home (2018). And wonder he could ever make it back home. How could any husband fake accident and let his friend takes his place in his family? Just as the premise was false, in both literary performing art and real-world, so was the acting itself. A Way Back Home lacked actual contextual controversy and therefore falls flat. Therapy has similar traits. Not as sumptuous as Anthony’s dinner, though.
I wandered onto the Netflix site, just me, myself, and I, to watch Therapy. Anthony Lima (Richard Mofi Dimajo), a middle-aged fellow in the opening scene, leaves a second therapy session with his younger wife, Mrs. Loveline Lima (Ermelinde Simo Saka Jing). Her face is as bland as the title of the film. She is afflicted with postnatal depression, and has lost interest in food, work and couldn’t hold her newborn in her arms. Mostly she cries, and such problems popular with our ages, I mean we men, compounded Anthony’s difficulties of midlife crisis.
Anthony has never been in such a situation before, and the question of taking care of a newborn baby made his condition worse. But when Loveline one day yells at Anthony berating men: “All of you mean men…I feel defiled…like it’s a male conspiracy.” Something tells us, her present condition must have been precipitated by a man, or all men. And this could be sexual abuse, male molestation, disappointment, parental abuse, and so forth.
Anthony has deficient sperm cells with age and all and has about three percent to make a woman pregnant. Dr. Ndive Frank (Neba Goodwill Awantu) diagnosed his case almost three years ago and gave him the result. Mr. Lima’s Boss (Otia Vitalis) got hold of it. He manipulated his wife, Loveline, and had sex with her at his office when he messed with her drink. Loveline must have believed this was a conspiracy by her husband and his boss. It all came to her after finding in Anthony’s diagnosis report her husband only has a three percent chance of making any woman pregnant.
Now that we know the root cause of Loveline’s demise and her ultimate anger over the issue. She must have been waiting for Anthony’s reaction against his boss. I look into her bulging glazed eyes, no depression in them but honestly, gut anger and frustration with Anthony. She’s aware of the fact that Anthony’s boss molested her and got her pregnant. According to the DNA result, Anthony is not the biological father of her baby. Anthony is so fantastic that Loveline is beginning to feel and even conclude that he is part of the trick to make her pregnant.
The script didn’t expound on it, but I labored with a hard literary effort to decipher what Anurine Nwunembom, the screenwriter, is belaboring hard, real hard to say here. But at the same time, he is soft, to tell us the limitations of a man, Anthony in this case, by age and in earnest, incredibly in love with a younger wife, is helluva afraid of. Anthony knows he can’t make a woman pregnant. “he has known so and has not said a word till now,” says Loveline. He has a redeeming quality we hear in his soliloquies. “I couldn’t bring myself to tell you…you have been blaming yourself all these years for not being able to have a child…I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that you had slept with another man. And…another man had succeeded where I failed. (Kneels) I was burning with jealousy and confusion.”
There are certain elements absent in this literary project. Anurine didn’t tell us in plain language as we experienced in A Way Back Home (2018). Tim Robert (Alexx Ekubo) had arranged with George (Ik Ogbonna), with whom he later had a brawl to pull the stunt. It may sound ridiculous. It is not clear if Anthony had anything to do with what his boss did to his wife. He may have known but played safe to keep his job. Imagine how Loveline bolted from the dinner table at the mere mention of Anthony’s boss. The frame freezes for a second. Anthony is oblivious to that statement even as his wife clatters her way out. That’s the crux of her anger, and Anthony couldn’t do anything about it.
The writer is flaunting with whodunit here. This movie is not about an evening tv crime story like Criminal Minds, Blue Bloods, Sherlock Holms, which will lead us to investigate the doer of a crime. We need to know the root cause of Loveline’s demise and either root for her or against her. The shameful secrets either a man or woman endure in marriage: the wife could no longer have children because of so many abortions in her youth. The husband whose sperm dries up by the time he turns thirty. This is a human story.
Secrets of this nature have been the main focus of lots of writers. Most writers strive to bring the darkest part of the human characters on screen. They also have a way of compromising their behaviors in the face of love if it takes them to cry over the bludgeoned body of their loved one. If the incident in this movie could come to literary court, I hold Anthony accused of everything. And I blame myself for having rooted for his way into the story. Almost, I cried for him to have been left to care for her daughter.
It seems I was made a fool of. Let us face it, because the screenplay didn’t tell us, did Anthony partake of his wife being raped by his boss, and pretends all along? Unless we are wrong, but if it is so, then, like I said earlier, the movie bears a similar trait with A Way Back Home. We have to ask ourselves, who is the protagonist, Loveline or Anthony? If the Antagonist is Anthony’s boss, he is not given a fair chance in the drama. If none of these characters, then we assume the story didn’t have a conflict. No conflict, no drama.