Hope Studios and BFO TV present Femi Adebayo (Chief Balogun), Lateef Ademeji (Chi Jushua), Jide Kosoko (Chief Otun), Halima Abubakar (Show Host), Kahinde Bankole (Adetutu), Zack Orji (Chizutere’s Father), Tubosun Odunsi (Chief Priest), Rachel Oniga (Iya lode), Jumoke Georgwe (Iyaloja), Beatrice Funke Kanyinsade. Director, Desmond Elliot; Writer, Beatrice Funke Ogunmola. © 2021.
Love Castle showcases Nollywood’s top talents, including Jide Kosoko, who consistently excels in his roles. Watch, for instance, his calm and resilient character in The Royal Hibiscus (2017). He remains Adetutu’s father’s heir until her twin brother is discovered. Lateef Ademeji acts as the dejected kid, as in Strangers (2022). When he is found in the boondocks, by travelling preachers and total strangers, with a gangrenous foot, then bring him to town, send him to school, and eventually, he becomes a medical doctor. Here, he plays an autistic character whom his father once abandoned because of his disability. He was found in the thick of the forest and brought home by Chizutere’s Father (Zack Orji), as the screen got to know him. He names the unidentified disabled kid Chi Jushua (Lateef Ademeji), gets him into school, and discovers an uncanny talent in the young man with a disability.
I must view Love Castle from the characters’ point of view rather than the plot, though, if I could play on words here, “the Twix shall meet, plot and character.” I suspect the writer tries to misdirect the audience by pulling a sneaky and clever ploy to manage the story, so we can use character to tell us the writer’s plot. Ayo (Desmond Elliot) and his wife arrive in Lagos at the Murtala Mohammed Airport in a joyful mood. Both look forward to the business at hand: crowning his wife as a Regent of the Kingdom. They expect this to be completed in a few days, so they take the next flight to join their daughter, who is back in the States.
“Man proposes, God disposes,” they say. The ceremony had an indefinite date, so one spouse had to stay in Nigeria and the other in America—a hard decision. But she must. Custom dictates so. Suppose I digress here a little: My father (now passed) once became a Regent Paramount Chief. A Mandingo-Mende man whose religion frowns upon anything the Quran shuns. Yet, he was forced to join the native Mende Poro society before they made him—end digression. Adetutu is not one to defy the gods of her kingdom. But for how long? Ayo, in the States, keep pestering her to the point of craziness. Yet the elders couldn’t let her leave. In a sense, she’s locked up in the castle by herself.
Adetutu stays behind in Nigeria. Soon, an avalanche of problems comes crashing down on her. The spirit of the crown goes on the rampage, killing every contestant who even remotely entertains the idea of becoming a rogue king; they all meet untimely deaths. She’s at her wits’ end, pulling her hair and crying her eyes to sleep, yet she waits. Chief Otun’s (Jide Kosoko) timely intervention made her stay for the sake of her late father, King, and propose that Adetutu visit with the Chief Priest. The Priest directs them to an out-of-town address in Enugu, to a particular address, and there they discover Chi Joshua, Adetutu’s twin mate. What a relief! The spirit of the crown can now rest in peace. The bona fide owner of the crown is found. This is where character and plot meet.
After reviewing Hire A Man (2016) and The Department (2015), I identified Desmond as noteworthy in Nollywood. But the director’s project that won me over was Kiss and Tell (2011), pp. 11-14, Nollywood Movie Reviews Vol 1, which I guess was Desmond’s sophomore project, but don’t hold me to it. Desmond directed Kiss and Tell, with such style and ease that I made a notable statement of serious craftsmanship for films: “Desmond Elliot is no idiot.” He takes the business of cinema like Kunle Afolayan with gusto. Both play it low, not loud, and not flamboyant in their successes. Those are the qualities I like in a Man.
Imagine Love Castle almost becoming a melodrama, with Ayo ultimately revealed as the villain. Imagine how he played on our emotions and how he tells this sensational, sentimental tale, feeding us piecemeal. He shifted the stress from the young Regent in Nigeria to himself in the States, leading to a gruesome incident due to Ayo’s impatience and intolerance for tradition—a drunken raping of his wife’s older sister. That is how he becomes a villain of his own doing, an abomination against the kingdom, so as never to unite in sex with his beloved wife. And when Adetutu insists on going to America, leaving the throne of his father empty, this is what Chief Otun tells her: “…otherwise, you will die shamelessly in seven days, and seven months after your shameful death, every one of your father’s relations will die.” Terrifying enough to scare the living hell out of Adetutu. But she has had enough and still bolts out of the scene.
The entire courtiers in the Kingdom are baffled about the killings going on around the palace. Just as they finger-point at each other, the Chief Priest accuses Adetutu of committing abomination by eating the forbidden tree’s fruit. Hence, the anger of the gods meted out on their world. Desmond didn’t hurry through these expositions. He wanted to tickle us some more. He takes us back to America and lets us witness Adetutu’s sister commit suicide in the tub. The Spiritual Crown had visited her—another sensation for viewers and calamity for Adetutu and her clan. The resolution to this movie is classic. At Chi Joshua’s coronation, everyone in Nigeria is present as “King Ifegbade Olaonipekun, the Unquestionable One,” takes the crown, except Ayo.
In one of his essays, George Orwell said, “All Art is Propaganda.” He couldn’t have been more to the point, considering Love Castle and its theme. There are other movies of this nature: Diamond in the Sky (2018), The Wait (2021), Strangers (2022), and Felicima (2007), pp. 191-192, Nollywood Movie Reviews Vol 1. Since movies are a popular medium, they sometimes act as the town criers of old. They throw light on the needs of societies in helping with the deplorable situations in our midst. Felicima’s effort to hire a disabled cripple, arriving in tatters at her office for a job interview is a case in point. Society chastised her for hiring a cripple. Yet she stood her ground even as she was, by intrigue, almost lost her business empire.
Love Castle celebrates a man’s life, who his father abandoned in the forest due to his disability. The propaganda here is to let the world know that autism in our children, brothers and sisters, can’t be a condemnation to life’s misery. You’d be surprised to learn that most autistic kids have an uncanny ability, with enough patience and understanding waiting to be tapped. Thus, Chi Joshua, a child left in the forest to be devoured by wild animals, became a national swimmer, bringing a trophy to Enugu and Nigeria, then became an Oba.