Quantum Leap Productions, Omoni Oboli Production presents Uche Montana (Helen), Jenifer NNorugba (Mel), Eso Dike (Charles), Habiba (Inem), Helen Samuel (Arbitrator), Martin Ogbebor (Nsikak) © 2024
It was a battle of the best as Royal Arts Academy, producers of Something About You (2024), and Omoni Oboli TV, producers of A Night in July, vied for the talented Iso Dike. He is (Yemi) in Something About You and (Charles) in A Night in July. He is a tall fellow with an enviable stature that could dwarf me; he is a darling for Nollywood women beauties, as Joseph Benjamin was in Kiss and Tell (2011), pp11-14 Nollywood Movie Reviews Vol 1. Such similarity existed with the production of Strength of Faith and Strength to Strength (2008), pp 265-266 Nollywood Movie Reviews Vol 1, where the production was done next to each other, personalities were swapped between studios, and the finished products were marketed next door, to each other in New York.
Get ready to be swept off your feet as love unfolds on a magical night in July for Charles (Eso Dike). Remember, love comes in many colors. Helen (Uche Montana), a binge drinker by character, had been bottom-up the whole night in a bar on the eve of her wedding and ended up in Charles’s hotel room 97. Of course, they had sex. She wakes up with an alarm and accuses the stranger beside her in bed, hardly knowing how she got there. As she steps out of the room, she stands face to face with her fiancé, Nsikak (Martin Ogbebor), who confronts her about why she is coming from another man’s room, and then Charles leans in the door and shows his face. The fiancé cancels the wedding right there.
Helen is a victim of an envious friend, Mel (Jenifer Nnorugba), who doesn’t want Helen to marry Nsikak because she is messing up with the man behind Helen’s back. On the eve of Helen’s wedding, a binge drinker she is, and regardless of her being the bridesmaid, Mel messes with her drink and gets Helen so drunk that she ends up in room 97, in Charles’s bed. Helen couldn’t find out what happened to her that night. Still, with the help of the restaurant, Charles and his legal attorney could find out exactly what had happened.
Helen leaves with no wedding, no fiancé, and no romantic future, and she also loses her job. She turns to sue Charles for rape. Charles hires a legal counselor to take him through, yet as they leave arbitration court, Helen finds out she is pregnant from the one-night stand since she and her fiancé had settled on not having sex until after the wedding––chastity agreement in Something About You. Charles falls in love with Helen the same way he falls in love with Bev in Something About You because she was raped at a young age. Here, he feels guilty when Helen accuses him of raping her, a traumatic experience his Aunt went through after a rape incident. Like most men, however, he is not quite ready to take on fatherhood responsibilities, so he’s initially reluctant to accept the pregnancy.
In a cordial meeting between Charles and his legal advice, both with their half-filled liquors in tumblers crackling on ice, relaxed, we hear Charles take an about-face turn in his relationship with Helen, and the Counselor asks:
“Why are you pleased with her?”
“To be honest, she’s audacious, feisty. She’s fierce. I must be honest. I’ve never seen a baby like her. And best of all, she knows her right.”
From then on, Charles and Helen commonly understood the topic of pregnancy. Helen gave in to Charles, and they engaged.
The plot of A Night in July, mainly when the production used the same lead as Something About You, has many similarities. Bev, in Something About You, was raped at a young age by five men. Here is Helen yelling that Charles rapes her, and she’s about to go to court. And Charles is subdued by the fact that he saw the trauma his Aunt went through when she was raped. Most Nollywood projects use rape as a standard motor to carry their water-down romantic films. Both these productions use rape as a standard plot line in their projects.
In A Night in July, Helen red-handedly catches Nsikak at Mel’s apartment when she confesses to Helen that she has been all along in love with her fiancé. Helen is surprised but sums up Mel’s behavior towards her lately, especially when the restaurant released the video of her messing with her drink, for which the police interrogate her. In Something About You, Bev catches Chris (Ichie Fuego) with a girlfriend in the bar, and she calls the beleaguered relationship off. In essence, these two movies use a water-down plot that, at first glance, you want to fold your chair and call it a night. Something About You may have more substance, for example, the spy plot, than A Night in July.
Omoni’s Being Mrs. Elliot (2014) is a beautiful production with meat on the bone. Identity issues in films are challenging to shoot and edit, so Being Mrs. Elliot stands out. And by the ingenuity of the director, writer, and cinematographer, they pull it to the finish line with a remarkable result. Omoni Oboli, the Director of Being Mrs. Elliot, did an excellent job presenting Lara (Omoni Oboli), herself as the delusional character, ending in the care of Isawuru (Ayo Makum), a country herbalist, and Fisayo (Uru Eke), seventy percent burnt, recognized only from the wedding ring. The said husband, Majid Michel, gives her a new face. Challenging! We need to tell such a story. Intense. Romance and love between a man and a woman are overdone in Nollywood. Hence, the themes and plots are always shallow, similar, and, uhm! And what will we do after we name each movie after the calendar months of the year? Is a night in August in the can already?
A Night in July applies economies of scale because of the story and budget. The movie is about ninety percent shot indoors, less visual, with a limited crowd, and shot mainly in the day, characteristic of a low-budget or shoe-string production. I rate the production as a final project for an MFA program dissertation, or, better yet, I can settle on a soap opera, going on to ten episodes. Larger-than-life, Okonkwo-like (Things Fall Apart) characters who will take up issues with the system in the Bling Lagosians (2019) could be appreciated in films if only with financial availability. We love to see characters with a penchant for power and success, iconic and narcissistic, who will conquer even at the tip of a dagger. An Amazonian-like woman to stand to a man or society–Love Is War (2019). Better yet, The Boy Who Harness the Wind (2019). In the words of Roger Ebert, A Night in July is “Deceptively Simple.”
In an off-the-cuff statement, I’m afraid of the same old dilemma I faced of getting Ramsey Nouah’s correct last name when he broke into the movie scene. Some producers billed him as “Nuah.” Some, “Nouh,” and “Noauh.” It wasn’t until about 1998 that we finally settled on “Nouah” on all Nollywood billings. I’m afraid we are going through the same identity crisis here. In Something About You, Yemi is ” ‘I’so Dike,’ but in A Night in July, he is “‘E’so Dike.” Shall future productions decide upon the correct spellings of our stars? Yes, we agree that most African ethnic names are always differently spelled and pronounced by natives every ten miles away. However, that won’t give us an excuse for using names that would later puzzle reviewers or even the personality in question. In reviewing or writing any literary commentary, wrongly misspelling the names of personalities is an egregious sin.