VSL Media presents Toyin Abraham, (Mama Olisa), Mojisola Adebanjo (Pamela), Joy Adeyemi (Dancer), Doreen Alex (Mama T), Adeola Alonge (Lady), Tise Awodiya (Nurse), Damilare Kuku (Rolake Dabiri), Zubbi Michael (Johntana), Deyemi Okanlawon (Gowon), Veronica Choj, Eso Dike (Kayode), Jide Kosoko (Judge). Director, Biodun Stephen; Writers, Niyi Akinmolayan, Manniee Oiseomaye; Producer, Vicent Okonkwo; Cinematography, Ladipo Abiola, Adedayo Alamu. © 2022
The female supporting lead in this movie is not the best I could recommend for an evening entertainment piece. I’m kinda warning you, for, they shattered my quiet Spring Sunday evening. It was supposed to be good, but no. Toyin Abraham has three movies based on abusive marriages. Starting with Nimbe (2019), and Celebrity Marriage (2019). In those movies, she sustained blackeyes after slaps and a broken nose. It breaks my poor heart when I see her wheeled on a gurney into the ambulance and later pronounced dead. Pronouncing Mama Olisa ( Toyin Abraham) dead, in The Wildflower’s first ten minutes of screen time is a downer. It is like when the tragic death of VanVicker was pronounced in the comedy, Corporate Maid (2008). Dispiriting!
Here in The Wildflower, Mr. Gowon claims to be an honest boss over the young Rolake Dabiri (Damilare Kuku) who comes knocking at his Ocean Heights Construction office door for a job. Imagine how he sizes Rolake up. Like a hungry lion welcoming prey. He is immediately hot for the young innocent woman who has left her fiancé’s home to seek a job interview with Gowon (Deyemi Okanlawon). The serial raper gives her the job but not quite a week has passed, Mr. Gowon has an out-of-town presentation with board members, and his secretary, “Rolly,” as he lovingly crowned her, should go with him.
Being a man and knowing what most CEOs do to their secretaries on such trips, Nedu, advised his girl not to go. “It’s a privilege! What are you worried about? Chasing my dreams?” She flaunts the newfound opportunity on her boyfriend’s face, only to return from the trip, falling in his arm weeping, “He raped me!”
As if the Writers, Niyi Akinmolayan and Manniee Oiseomaye were not done yet disheartening us, by killing our beloved Mama Olisa, her oldest daughter left, in the care of Rolake and left also in the care of a next-door neighbor, Johntana (Zubbi Michael) molested the vulnerable young girl, who has not even got over the loss of her mother. This neighborly fellow the girl calls ‘uncle;’ well, all male and female adults in our countries are our aunties and uncles, and not relatives per se. The poor and helpless girl managed to bloody his forehead.
I almost believed at first sight that Temi Otedola of Kunle Afolayan’s film, Citation (2020) was featured here. But no. The Wildflower which features Damilare Kuku, is a truncated or mutilated version of Citation. The Wildflower has too many plots in the story: It has to deal with spousal abuse, child molestation, and rape. And what about the abusive husband in whose hands Mama Olisa passes away? Citation is a linear story that deals with the abuse of a university professor’s power over his student.
Citation as a movie, is a straight-jacketed form of story, dealing primarily with what happens behind the hallowed university walls. Since the life of the story depended on the accusation of abuse and molestation of a university student, it was incumbent upon the writer to lay out full court proceedings of the case, for the audience. Incidents of such transgressions once occurred on this campus, and the professor accidentally got killed, chased by an errant boyfriend of the college girl, and the motor car hits him dead. Temi Otedola in Citation was rescued by Joke Silva who ran an NGO in the movie. Interesting story.
The Wildflower managed to pull this off through a short court proceeding but left certain plots hanging. The Wildflower was played largely outside the courtroom. The help of a doctor connected her to an organization that volunteers to sensitize the public by going on television talk shows, and NGOs to fight the formidable power of Manager Gowon. Rolake’s case gained momentum from the woodwork of witnesses who have been raped also by Gowon. Before then, Rolake is badgered by Gowon’s lawyer for her not reporting the case of rape to the police or to have got a medical report after the incident.
Both Black Rose (2018) and The Wildflower can be compared to the American versions of Jeffery Epstein’s exploitation of young females he harnessed for the pleasures of his shady friends in high places in society. And The Wildflower is a reminiscence of Donald Trump versus E. Jean Carroll. In Rolake’s The Wildflower as in E. Jean Carroll’s case, both neither made a police report nor sought medical attention but still went ahead and sue Trump and was awarded five million dollars. Gowon got off lucky with a fine of fifty million nairas.
Considering the story structure of The Wildflower and Citation, The Wildflower had a three-story plot but developed only one to the fullest. Citation’s dramatic structure is a single thread of events fashioned after the nursery rhyme, “The House That Jack Built.”