OJ Productions presents, Majid Michel (Fred), Adora Uko (Maria), Jim Iyke (Majid), Nadia Buari (Mara), Jibola Dabo (ChiefDajamaji) Gloria Young (Lucy), Omonie Oboli (Stacy), Florence Sunday (Fred’s mother), Screenplay/Director, Frank Raja Arase; Director of Photography, Tunde Adekoya; Executive Producers, Ojiofor Ezanyreche?Obumneke Ezeanyaeche. (C2009)
Smiling faces sometimes pretend to be your friend/Smiling faces, smiling faces, is a frown turned upside down/Smiling faces, smiling faces tell lies and I got proof/Beware. Beware of the handshake that hides the snake/I’m tellin’ you beware of the pat on the back it just might hold you back/Jealousy, (Jealousy) misery, (misery) envy… The Temptations.
The Temptations have it all in that verse about friends and their smiling faces, and that is so true about Behind A Smile. When we see Fred (Majid Michel) catching his best friend Majid (Jim Iyke) from going adrift in the world of hardships and hunger, and joblessness and brings him to Nigeria, it could mean Fred, wants to give his broad smiling friendly face, a break. It doesn’t, however, escape me hearing Majid say to Fred in passing, “You want to be ahead of me in life.” Fred wants to give his friend a job so he can make a decent living. But his friend Majid doesn’t believe in nine to five. “I’m a hustler,” he claims. What a loser statement for a friend taking you from some flee motel and opening his world and mansion to you!
Fred takes a long-lost friend, Majid from a hotel to his home. In the next scene, a group of men chases Fred for a briefcase under his arm. He has the company payroll money in that briefcase; Mara a sick woman in a wheelchair saves Fred from the attackers. Majid still sets him up with his gang to rob him anyway, and Fred escapes with his head in a bandage. Fred later falls desperately in love with Mara and volunteers to donate his kidney to help her get well and walk again. When she’s on the road to recovery, Fred has a ghastly accident which makes him hospital bed bound. While there, Majid and Mara, knowing that Fred will not be recovering from his sickness, fall in love even when Mara is pregnant with Fred. Mara and Fred visit Fred in the hospital and tell him that they are in love with one another. The news disappoints Fred.
Already, Fred for the sake of Mara, has cut off his scheduled marriage with Stacey (Omonie Oboli) and in return, her parents drive his mother from the family home Fred’s mother was using, and Fred too is turned out from the building and is homeless. Fred goes back to beg Stacey but discovers that Stacey has had his baby and she was in bed at the hospital, sick with leukemia. Fred again donates his bone marrow for her to survive this fateful disease. While recovering in the hospital, Fred and Stacey marry and come home after the hospital discharge her with their daughter, Freida. Majid’s girlfriend Maria splashes acid in Mara’s face; she runs from there, and upon altercation with him, she shoots Majid and leaves him dying on the street.
Now, I remember this Majid Michel fellow in another movie, who acts as the wacko-artist, who placarded the picture of Ghallywood queen, Jackie Appiah, all over town because he was infatuated with her. His mother Kalsoume Sinare slit her wrist and bled to death, just so, she pleased her artist son and donated her good heart to the ailing girlfriend, Jackie Appiah, with the failing heart. He loses her to Frank Artus anyway. That is in the film, Who Loves Me? Majid does it here again, but this time it isn’t his mother, he does it with himself and twice. First, he gives his kidney to Mara, and as she gets well, she leaves him in near-death, in the hospital, for his smiling friend, Majid, as it happened to him in Who Loves Me? But the goddess of love, Aphrodite, could not be so unfaithful to a man who is in the habit of donating his body parts for the sake of love. His bone marrow donation to Stacey gives her another shot at life.
I’ve got it. The DNA of Who Loves Me? (2010), directed by Frank Rajah Arase, could be traced back to not a far distant parent, Behind A Smile (2009) which was written and directed by Frank Rajah Arase. I can imagine his ponder with the questions as to how best he could treat Magid’s character. Should he make him a total loser in the end like in Who Loves Me? No, his role here, deserves a payoff in the end, by letting him have Stacey, but not before donating another body part to save her life from Leukemia. And what of Jim Iyke’s character, should he let him get away with Nadia Buari like Frank Artus snatches Jackie Appiah in Who Loves Me? Again no, Stacey’s part is the one Majid Michel should make up with, so the screenplay could be well rounded.
Frank Rajah Arase quite well tells us here in Behind A Smile that the wages of sin are death. Jim Iyke’s character has to die if we are to see ourselves out of the plot twists and turns and then give both Majid Michel, Stacy, and daughter, Freida, a beautiful life here and hereafter. The script has two significant plotlines. Fred and Mara relationship plot, which only goes as far as the surgery when Fred donates his kidney to Mara and ends when news of Fred’s ghastly accident broke out, and we see him in bandages in the hospital. Next is the moment of truth when Mara meets Fred in the store, confesses to him about her disappointment in Majid, and asks for Fred’s forgiveness.
And Fred and Stacy relationship plot, which is the main, continues to the end with Fred donating his marrow to Stacey, getting married in the hospital and bringing his family home. Majid’s character and presence in the story bind the plot strings together, though I keep asking myself why, Maria ‘s (Adora Uko) character, is introduced in the story. I guess, only to liquidate both Mara and Majid because the story was becoming a melodrama. Hence, with Mara out of the way and Majid lying in the street fighting with his last breath, Stacey and Fred come to a peaceful home.
There are lots of undissolved plot resolutions: Mara and Stacey never meet in the story, and not much about Mara’s pregnancy in the story. If the issue of a child is crucial in our culture, then mentioned in our stories, remember, we are not going to forget about it as quickly as a dramatic point. In as much this is the type of story about intrigue and betrayal, there’s no fall out between Majid and Fred from what this strange friend does to him. Why should the robbery leave unresolved? These were dramatic points of conflicts, but there’re none. Why did the story not tell us about Majid’s relationship with Maria earlier in the story? When Fred donates his kidney to Mara, he’s supposed to be taking dialysis to sustain him, but getting involved in a ghastly accident and miraculously coming back healthy in the story, didn’t sit well with my critical mind and eye.
One thing I observed about this story is the Shakespearean model of expressions-dialogue. It was like the characters in Romeo and Juliet at the Globe Theatre performing in the scenes where Mara and Fred are expressing their feelings to each other. It is not only out of place and time, for modern films, especially Ghallywood, but the expressions also seem over and done, and seemingly a sort of recitation to impress a room full of parents of elementary school kids perform an end of year playlet. I wasn’t.
In Behind A Smile, this is more a story of envy and jealousy of a man, Majid, than a love for an innocent, clean hearted and caring friend, Fred. The moral of this story is that envy, jealousy and “shortcut to success,” as Fred tells Majid in the hotel lobby, will not pay. After all the intrigue, the setups and snatching of Fred’s girlfriend and causing him headaches and heartaches, Majid perishes on the street in the ghetto, while Fred brings his family home. We must be mindful of the friendly smiles, the warm handshakes and the friendly pat on the backs; most are sources of misery, jealousy, and envy.
Dear Producer, you forgot to give Freida, Stacy and Fred’s daughter credit.