Kehinde Bankole (Adire), Yvonne Jegede (Salewa), Mike Afolarin (Deji), Femi Branch (Mide) Ifeanyi Kalu (Thomas), Yemi Blaq (Captain), Kelechi Udegbe (Tobi), Idowu Philips Funlola Aofiyebi (Folashade), Ibrahim Chatta (Tega), Onyinye Odokoro (Abeni)Damilola Ogunsi (Ope), Tomi Ojo (Simi), Kelechi Udegbe (Tobi). Writer, Jack’kenneth Opukeme; Producers, Barbara Babarinsa, Mimi Bartels; Executive Producers, Kene Okwuosa, Moses Babatope; Cinematographer, Emmanuel Igbekele; Director, Adeoluwa Owu. ©2023.
I like movies named after a single character. It challenges us to analyze the character’s traits, relationships, and development in the story. It will be interesting to note the changes she must undergo. Adire (Kehinde Bankole) is tired of being Captain’s (Yemi Blaq) enslaved person. Captain is her pimp, and she works dirty work with unknown men, dangerous men, shady characters, and all sorts. Captain always takes all the rewards. She grows tired and wants out. And when Captain would make this one big counterfeit deal, she seized upon the opportunity, grabbed some wads of notes (money) from his briefcase, and relocated.
In this sense, Adire resembles The Naked Kiss (1964), that old movie in which a prostitute runs away from her pimp to a suburban locale. Adire runs from Captain to a suburban locale away from the glare of city lights. She not only runs from Captain, but those stinky smoke-filled rooms, the shady figures she was always forced to hang out with. She runs away from Captain to achieve freedom from all that life. When she gets out of the van, she turns from the freeway and looks over Oyo Town, her new place of residence, and she heaves a sigh, with a slight smile. You see her lying on her new living room floor, romping and frolicking in her newfound freedom. For the first time, she’s happy. “They said a bird in the bush with a broken wing is better than a pet in the cage. I am not a pet. This is the first day of the rest of my life. A new place, a new start, a new name.”
That is Adire’s freedom song, addressing her newfound love for a place where she could find peace. Oyo Town is a close-knit, stringent religious community. She brings her mixed-bag luggage to this suburban setting as a seamstress. The same fashion career that made her the queen bee of Captain’s outfit.
In her new Oyo Town settlement, where the church plays a dominant role in the lives of every resident, Adire must face challenges with the church, especially the church mother and the community. The new rural community sees her as foreign, a spinster who dresses in mini frocks. She is frowned upon by wives and not so much by husbands, who enjoy the company of the new Ashawo in town, especially Tobi (Kelechi Ogbedi). On her first night out, Tobi sees her and becomes infatuated with her beauty. Adire would fall out with Salewa over her husband’s friendliness with the Ashawo.
The most formidable encounter in her new environment is the Deaconess of the church, Sade (Idowu Philips). She’s vindictive and hypocritical, to the point of Madam Eglantine, the Prioress in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Her mannerisms and clothing carry a stamp of her station in both the church and society. In church, during the funeral of Adeni, she places a piece of black cloth on the lap of Adire, as she wouldn’t want her exposing her legs to the church males. Sade, Pastor’s wife, can wield authoritative power over everyone in the church, even her husband, Mide (Femi Branch), the church pastor. Of course, she is quick to see through the past life of Adire, “Ashawo,” she calls her, and can’t pass the fact that the new spinster female in their midst is running from injustice to find salvation in their congregation.
The news of Adire as the latest men’s sensation is all over town, and it is a threat to all women folks. Women in Oyo Town must hold a vigil and extend their fasting for another day to expel the demon in the village. “Ladies, we cannot be afraid of man or spirits…you all will march straight to that woman’s house and send that woman out of our town.” As Sade would command the women folks like an oracle would. “I don’t know how to fight witches.” Said a woman congregant. “She’s a prostitute.” Said another. “It’s the same thing!” Another added. When Salewa is nominated because her husband has gone mad for the Ashawo to face Adire in her haunted house, as they claimed the house to be, the encounter will be the turning point in the story. Beautiful scenery. It is memorable when Salewa creeps on Adire in the night’s heat.
Adire, scared, “And you are?”
Salewa, “The wife of the man you are trying to rubbish.”
Adire, “You need to be specific because many men want to be ruined by me.”
Salewa, “Prostitute!”
Adire, “Oh yes, you come into my house to attack me for this horror that has become you. Now I see why men like him, whoever he is, come for women like me.”
At this point, Salewa looks down upon herself. She’s defeated and begins to sob.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to call you ugly. It’s just that I get frustrated when wives come after me. Raging as if I’m the one who caused their husband to chase after me…. You are beautiful.”
Adire introduces Salewa to her miracle braziers as a gift after the encounter. First, Salewa wears Adire’s braziers in her bedroom that night, and Tobi is wild like the lion he claims to be. In church, everyone notices her bouncing and bubbling breasts, to their amazement. Later, the entire womanhood toes the line to Adire’s door. And even have a joint gathering in her living room. And soon gets her to win over all the church women and the local community, to the chagrin of Sade, the church mother.
Meanwhile, back in the city, Captain is unhappy about losing Adire among his nestful of Ashawos, more so when she runs away with his money, which Adire feels is a claim for the work she’s been doing for Captain. When Captain discovers a brazier from one of his Ashawos, he suspects Adire’s handiwork and asks for the source. He would come after Adire to the village only to meet his demise in a firestorm. Like they say, being a villain doesn’t have a happy ending.
Between Adire and Captain’s relationship, where she has been his slave and wants her freedom, there is the plot of Adire, the newfound community, and the church. The church plot plays the bedrock of the entire drama. It portrays a man’s need for freedom, even if it isn’t easy. We soon find Adire, who was scorned at first by the women folks; her apartment, a haunted house; her living room becomes the center of banter for Oyo Town women.
Adire couldn’t help who she was because her name signified it. Her propensity for fashion derives from her name–Adire. In Yoruba, Adire means tie-dye, a fashionable and beautiful wax fabric design and an indigenous source of livelihood for the people of this region. I didn’t, however, see Adire becoming an entrepreneur in the film, as most reviewers would claim, but maybe in part two. She introduces her product to the women, gaining friendship and acceptance. Soon, her once-haunted house became the meeting ground for all women in Oyo Town.