Royal Arts Academy presents Majid Michel (Joshua), Mbong Amata (Darima), Mbong Amata (Dise), Ik Ogbonna (Tom), Cassandra Odita (Mrs. Bassey), Alex Ayalogu (Mr. Bassey), Ihhoma Nwigwe (Tessy). Story by Emem Isong; Screenplay, Bola Aduwo/ Koko Benson/Rita Onwurah; Director of Photography, Austin Nwaolie; Director, Lancelot OduwaImasuen; Producer/Executive Producer, Mbong Amata. ©2014
After watching five percent of this film, I guessed who the writer could be for some reason. Have I not gotten used to the preachy and sketchy dialogue of Emem Isong’s tracts? I knew this could be one of her series plucked from the 2014 treatises. Do you remember, Knocking on Heaven’s Door (2014)? The film catapulted the long-nose and beautiful, now Adusua Etomi-Wellington? She wasn’t Wellington, then. Now, she’s married and a star with a price tag. At least I can hardly forget the monologue Majid delivered in Bursting Out. Come to think of it, I wonder if Majid didn’t have a personal input on those lines because he made them his.
You may say, “leave Emem alone.” And I say, “No.” Writers matter a great deal in reviewing their films. With 44 screenplays to her credit and producing 81 films is no small feat. She’s almost a literary institution. Lecturers and Professors would be assigning MFA candidates to research their careers. In most of her projects, Emem has presented characters that hold mirrors in front of viewers to see themselves. In Knocking on Heaven’s Door, two scenes stand out in relief to vindicate my argument about the use of dialogue.
- Brenda (Ini Edo) visits Tom (Majid Michel) in his studio uninvited with a ploy to make love to him. He walks out on her. Tom comes barging outside, and Brenda is furious, toeing. “Jerk, that is what you are, a jerk.” Tom turns to her with a cigarette tucked between his lips, keenly looks at Brenda, reads into her, whisks the cigarette from his mouth, walks to Brenda, and smarks her mouth with a long drawn kiss. Breathless, “Satisfied now?” “Screw you!” “Screw…little Miss Brenda? Sleeping with half the boys to get a job, now your hunt is me. Guess what; I don’t do your type.”
- In the scene when Tom gives Debbie a ride and ends up in his mansion. Debbie is a married woman and feels cornered by Tom’s ploy to romance her, and she is about to run from the scene. “Debbie!” Tom calls her. “T” “T! Can you hear that? From Thomas to Tom and now T?” Tom laughs aloud, loving it. That scene indicates he has a toe hold on Debbie’s heart.
There aren’t long dialogues in these scenes, but the impact on the story is immense. After each stage, there is a contributory reward to the story’s progress. Brenda renews her relationship with Debbie’s husband, while Tom steals Debbie’s heart after the scene. She finds refuge in the tender love and care and opportunities from Tom. I am talking about the unpardonable transgressions we commit and locked all up in the deepest vaults of our hearts. Desi looks in Joshua’s eyes and fakes her sister’s place in the marriage.
Darima’s Dilemma is a movie about two highly identical twins, Darima (Mbong Amata) and her sister, Dise (Mbong Amata). They get in a pickle over a cheating twin partner, Darima, which brings tragedy to the family. I immediately noticed the writer or the input (story) of Emem Isong as I viewed Darima’s Dilemma. Besides Isong not being the screenwriter, the screenplay smells of her vision and characters that would go on to steal our conscience, anyway.
Darima asks her sister, Dise, to cover for her while she goes on an escapade with a boyfriend, Tom (Ik Ogbonna). The adventure goes wrong. Tom and Darima got involved in a fatal accident, and she passed away. It is not easy to explain to Darima’s husband, Joshua (Majid Michel), that his wife and Tom got killed in a wreck. Dise (Mbong Amata) is overwhelmed with guilt. She couldn’t face Joshua, her brother-in-law, the truth or tell her parents that her twin mate Darima got killed in a motor accident with a boyfriend. Instead, she acts as an impostor for Darima to her husband. Heaven knows how long this could last.
At first, it was a joke or a prank the twins pulled on Joshua, but now Desi has to continue playing Darima for real. The incident caused a dilemma for the entire family and friends. They couldn’t believe Desi could take a trip out of Lagos without telling anyone, as cautious as she was. An uncle asks, “Darima/Desi, are you sure your sister didn’t tell you anything?” Joshua steps in favor of his wife. Desi’s internal struggle with how to get out of the hot mess she and her sister Darima created is bearing heavily on her. She may say the truth to set her free. “No, don’t even try it.”
Of course, it couldn’t. After confession to the Priest, who advised her to come on with the truth, she felt relieved. Later, she called him ‘Joshua’ in the living room instead of darling. Joshua convinces him this couldn’t be Darima, so she confesses to Joshua. “I knew,” he said. Dise reveals to family and friends that his wife, Darima, did perish in a motor accident. She impersonates Darima to save Joshua the heartbreak. Yet, the story is now complicated when Dise is pregnant with Joshua’s child, and she’s thinking about abortion.
A dilemma can present compelling conflicts in a drama. Joshua is surprised that Darima prepares breakfast for her and his face shows puzzlement when his wife could not kiss him in the morning. In bed, she faces away from him, and when he advances on her, she complains about a headache. “Are you seeing someone?” “No.” “You see, you’re acting so funny….” Darima is still hanging out with Tom at his pad, in his bed, getting drunk, as Desi runs out of options and excuses. Then, she hears of Darima’s fatal wreck the next day. She gets killed in a motor accident.
A critical point in creating a dilemma story is how the writer or characters he made can wiggle their way out of the problem. There are mishaps and misjudgments Desi has to cope with at either Darima’s workplace or the bedroom with Joshua. For the first time, we witness when Joshua has wanted to have sex with her since her sister’s passing, and it’s like deflowering a newlywed all over. There is the scene she stands in front of a mirror and addresses herself. “You betrayed your sister. You desecrate her bed by sleeping with her husband….” (Not so remarkable monologue). Desi gets caught in a terrible situation, and the question is, how could she get out of it.
As a team of writers, Bola Aduwo, Koko Benson, and Rita Onwurah did a remarkable job with this project. When I started watching this movie, I wondered how it would end. The multiple complications to the dilemma drama were that Desi had gotten pregnant with Joshua’s child. But when Desi confessed to the Priest and gave her his holy advice, she was able to confront Joshua. Joshua is very angry with Desi and doesn’t want to hear about the pregnancy; he heard Desi is at the abortion clinic; he rushes there and stops her. And that is how the story resolved the dilemma. Great movie.