Royal Arts Academy Production presents Ekema Etim Eyang (Bev), Iso Dike (Yemi), Ichie Fuego (Chris), and Onyi Dorcas (Bev’s friend). Story/Screenplay, Onyii Cindy Umeh; Director of Photography 2, Boston Joe; Samuel Igwe; Executive Producer Imem Isong; Producer Ima Obong Udoh; Director of Photography 1, Samuel Ogbogu. © 2024.
I need you tonight
‘Cause I’m not sleepin’
There’s something about you…,
That makes me sweat.
INXS
The title of this movie evokes the wonderful Inxs song, Need You Tonight (1987). But I prefer we hold on to just the chorus. I’m not afraid to tell you that I found this movie in the Nollywood off the beaten path, because it is outside Netflix, which is my main dig. Right now, I am wading in the waters of Nollywood. Unpaddled, guarded solely by the Holy spirit. Something About You is not just fantastic; it’s a masterpiece. It’s so great, and I can’t wait to watch it again and again.
Something About You is a small film with a profound emotional impact. It doesn’t rely on grand locations or a large cast to tell its story, which is soaked in dramatic irony. Instead, it draws you in with the depth of its characters and the raw emotions they evoke, making Something About You a unique and compelling watch that will leave you feeling connected.
Bev (Ekema Etim Eyang) is an innocent work-from-home spinster who dates Chris (Ichie Fuego), a hardcore criminal involved in kidnapping, murder, and money laundering. Bev’s new neighbor is Yemi (Iso Dike), and Yemi’s assignment next to Bev is to spy on her involvement with Chris. Onyii Cindy Umeh, the Writer, puts characters together with something uncanny about each of them. Neither Bev knows who Chris and Yemi are.
Chris is all over Bev at Curtain Up, halfway down the staircase. He wants to get some from his sixth-month ongoing relationship with Bev devoid of sex. While this tussle is ongoing along the staircase, Yemi enters the apartment and witnesses Bev’s struggle with Chris. “The door was opened,” said the bespectacled stranger, pointing behind him. It is an uncomfortable scene for Bev, a perfect stranger, to witness such an awkward scene between lovers. Yemi, donning glasses, demonstrates a face and demeanor akin to a maniac, and by the way he stares, Bev doesn’t feel comfortable being in the same room with him.
Yemi, by trick, finds his way into Bev’s apartment and her heart by impersonating a relationship counselor. From the first day, when Yemi walks up on her and Chris in the stairway, Yemi makes a series of attempts to grant him access to her privacy. He barges into her apartment, begging for salt, wanting to charge his laptop, and bringing a bottle of wine for the sake of good neighborship, for which he is rebuffed.
Yemi has completed half his mission when he is finally accepted in Bev’s living room as a relationship counselor, with a fake pad, asking her questions and writing details. She gives Yemi an essential clue of her disposition and why she is reluctant to give in to Chris’s sexual demands: She was raped at a young age by five men and, ever since the incident, has been jittery at men’s mere touch–PTSD. That wins Yemi’s heart for Bev, romantically, though subliminally. “It’s been four weeks, six days, and sixteen hours since we parted.” A man who can remember every nanosecond of separation from a loved one could be over his head. Spy officer aside, Yemi is over his head for Bev right after.
Chris is on the other hand, aggrieved. He can’t get any from Bev, so, he turns into a damaged good when Bev catches him with another girl in the club. The last time he had visited Bev, Yemi barged in again on them with a bottle of wine. Criminals have an uncanny smell of law officers; Chris just slipped away from the scene until his last visit when he wanted to shag at Bev’s place until they got through some reconstruction in his apartment. He lies. “Nope,” she says.
He leaves Bev in Yemi’s hands. When he falls in love with Bev, Yemi breaks the official code of conduct. It’s like The Bodyguard (1992) movie when Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner fall in love. Well, not quite like The Bodyguard. In Something About You, Yemi is a mere detective on assignment, only that human nature plays its tricks on us that way when he felt his heart sink, noting Bev was raped by five men. He feels her vulnerability when he witnesses Chris almost trying to rape her.
This one evening, Bev, after a sleepover with Yemi, she is impressed that Yemi could not touch her throughout the night. She claims, “Men like that don’t exist anymore.” She had set up a table for two, but Yemi couldn’t show up until she got a phone call from Yemi’s partner asking her to come to the police station. At the station, Bev is shocked to find out Yemi is a detective who has been spying on her all along. Then, she finds Chris handcuffed and brought in for kidnapping and murder. Yemi’s entire exercise was more about getting to Chris than to Bev.
The appropriateness of the claim title–Something About You—comes in the form of something about Bev that makes Yemi fall in love with her besides his official mission. There is also something about Bev falling, especially in love with a detective assigned to her. Chris is also stuck on Bev, who cannot satisfy his sexual desires because they had signed a “chastity agreement.” Yet, he keeps glued to her, or let us blame it on the beautiful melons on her chest and the nyase behind her. It is the writer’s excellent craft to put these characters under the same roof and manage them without knowing each other’s motives in the story. We on the outside know the motives, but to them, it is like working in the dark–dramatic irony.
The interplay between Yemi and Bev is interesting. I admire Yemi’s demeanor. Almost on all occasions and scenes, Yemi’s forearms are permanently crossed in front of him. He portrays a reserved, nonthreatening approach to solving his assigned case–the modesty of a spy. In other instances, this could be the trademark of detective Marlowe, with his trench coat and trademark statement, “Oh, oh, one more thing before I forget.” His subservient demeanor makes Bev fall for him beyond her restraint to get closer to the “weirdo.” Remember, she had assumed Yemi was a weirdo, a creep, as he stared so much into her eyes and was an introvert at best. That could also have been the winning qualities he exhibited.
They say practice makes perfect. Onyii Cindy Umeh hasn’t taken a decade on the Nollywood scene, but since her debut with Dorothy (2022) through Choosing Yesterday (2023), through Love in Lagos (2023), and after writing fifteen screenplays in two years, is a writing feat never personally heard of. And as she goes along, so is the sharpening of her writing craft to note; Something About You is no exception. Onyii logs in at a breathtaking speed, doing two to three monthly screenplays. There is a literary fountain in the making here. No kidding! Onyii is etching her name on the tarmac of Nollywood Boulevard. Go Girl! Let me address Onyii:
I’ve got to let you know; I’ve got to let you know
You’re one of my kind.
INXS