African Pictures Inc. Nollywood Producers Guild USA present Richard Moffe Dimajo (Andrew) Pascal Atume (Chike), Chinney Chukwu (Elizabeth); (Executive). Producer, Annie Macauley Idebia (Amara) Pascal Atume; Director, John Uche; Screenplay, Chisom Oz-Lee; Director of Photography, Kwasi Fraser; Executive Producers, Pascal Atume, Oliver O. Mbamara, Chisom Oz-Lee, Chuck Ajoku, Bethels Agomuoh, Felix Nnorom, John Uche, Clarice Kulah, Chinney Chukwu; Producer Pascal Atume © 2021.
Roses are the most celebrated flowers in the life of humankind. It could be red, signifying passion and romance; pink, grace; cheery yellow, joy and positivity; graceful white, purity and new beginning; blue, mystery, the unattainable; majestic purple, royalty, elegance; peach, sincerity and gratitude; Green, growth; passionate orange, enthusiasm, desire. But dark, as in black, has negative connotations, mystic indeed. I remember reading Alexander Dumas Black Tulip, in my form one literature class, and ever since, as in color of flowers, “dark” expressed a pall of evil, and had stayed with me over fifty years. Dark Roses is no exception.
When our celebrated flower, rose, turns dark, we are not looking forward to a happy or joyful experience. Though not black, its deep shades of red and purple that appear black take its often-acclaimed dark color. It however denotes complex emotions, including, new beginnings, intrigue and farewell, mystery, and even death and mourning.
Dark Roses as a tragic drama is run on two main plot lines that eventually end up in a cemetery, can you imagine? Here is the main plotline: Elizabeth (Chinney Chukwu) is running to a court hearing with her ex-husband over their two kids. She’s irritated when the Chike’s (Pascal Atume) Gypsy cab she gets into couldn’t start. While Elizabeth, a nurse practitioner is in court slugging it out with her husband over custody of the two kids between them, Chike’s African wife, for whom he has credited large sums of money from loan sharks to get here, arrives. The first controversy between Amara (Annie Macauley Idebia) and her husband is when she demonstrates age difference by calling him “Sir.” “Sir” did she smell old age?
Chike will have to go through lots of stress: he pretends to be a bank worker, a car that couldn’t drive, and a land lady who couldn’t give him a break, while loan sharks hunt him in alleys and sometimes gets him bloodied and mostly come home and takes the anger on his wife. Once Amara passes her nursing degree examination, and starts making good money, the once professional banker becomes a couch potato, thinking that his investment in sponsoring a wife from Africa is eventually paying off. He is about to face similar experience all Africans who import wives or husbands go through.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth and her ex-husband fight to gain ownership of the two kids, take a rigmarole: It is discovered Andrew isn’t the biological parent of the kids. But his lawyer also presents a powerful discovery bordering on moral factors in relationship between fathers and children; that Elizabeth has temperament issues and couldn’t raise kids by herself, and her allegations against Andrew couldn’t hold water, like all women in divorce cases do. Most ex-wives said their husbands were abusive, while they went about sponsoring a said childhood boyfriend, lying in wait, and sponsoring them for thirty years in another man’s fake marriages, and bringing the said childhood friend forthwith into the country three months after their divorces.
Whereas the court proceedings between Andrew (Richard Moffe Damijo) and Elizabeth are settled: Andrew keeps the kids and Elizabeth given visitation rights for every other weekend; the relationship is resolved, with no accident and no blood spilled. But before then:
Andrew, “Why? Why Elizabeth? Why didn’t you tell me the children weren’t mine? Why didn’t you tell me I wasn’t the biological father? I don’t care who the fuck you slept with. I just want to know why you kept it from me.”
Elizabeth, “I said the kids are not yours. What’s your problem? Can you let me get into my own house?”
This is the scene Andrew’s posture indicates the feeling of a fuming ex-husband. All he could imagine was the murder of his ex-wife. He looks her in the face and imagines him choking the piece of human garbage standing in front of him. Whether to smoother her, murder her, throw her useless remains in garbage, and let the Monday morning garbage collectors take her and bury her in some dump shit. Yes, that is his mindset right now. He couldn’t do anything, though.
Chike and Amara plot ends up bad. Chike has put all his eggs into one basket. He assumes his investment in bringing Amara abroad gives him the right to have total control of his young wife, a tragedy that afflict most men who imports wives, or divorced wives import men. Especially so with Chike who couln’t let Amara help her sick mother back in Nigeria but goes along to buy himself a Mercedes car. So, when Amara’s friend Elizabeth, at work gives her vibes on independent living in America, Amara opens her own bank account and that infuriates Chike to choking her to death. Tragedy!
I admire the scriptwriter, how she converges the two plot arcs together. The same Gypsy cab driver, Chike, who had let Elizabeth down to take her to court and had exchanged cursive words with him, is the same Elizabeth who at last connived with Amara to conspire against Chike and even contribute to the murder of his wife. Small world. You bet Elizabeth is glad to inherit Amara’s newborn baby, since the court has given her husband custody of the two kids,
Dark Roses is a story so much like our African relationships as concerns marriage. My latest belief in these types of marriages is that never brings over one to a goldmine to help you dig a fortune together. Out of ninety percent, of all our marriages don’t survive. Imagine Chike’s plight to get Amara to the States, thinking she could help him be who he was made to be. But Amara has her own dream, especially under the tutelage of Elizabeth who has just finished slugging it out with her ex-husband, Andrew, and she’s bitter like hell. One thing this script pays the audience with is, Amara did die, her husband arrested for the murder of his wife, leaving behind her baby to Elizabeth.
As the title signifies, the devastations of divorce and financial problems between Chike and Amara cause even the most romantic relationship between two people to fight each other to death. Chike has been riding high, calling on the phone to Nigeria about his building project and had made promises and all. Yet when he finds that Amara has cleared the joint savings and transfers into her personal account, Chike could not swallow it and must choke his wife to death. This is where the menacing title of this script is justified.