Story by: Genevieve Nnaji
Produced by: Genevieve Nnaji, Chinny Onwugbenu, Chichi Nwoko.
Directed by: Ishaya Bako
STRUCTURE
The story starts from the middle, ricochets into the mind of the main character and then through to the beginning before slowly descending to the end.
I know you are wondering why we are discussing a film today instead of a book, well, I am a storyteller and when I see a great story I am elated to talk about it.
This is a story which if it had been written as a book would most likely have been written in the first person infact the best form would be in the first person, thus from the perspective of the main character Victoria. Most of the story happens in her mind. Every character she saw in her mind was a characters in her real life. Though some of them playing a different role in her mind than what had been their role in real life.
The language used is pretty simple, English. The movement of the story too is very beautiful and easy to understand, however I have an issue with its continuity and costume!
Victoria lives with Izu as a single lady and she is wearing a buba! Wait what? Why is a single lady wearing that overall and on her birthday! Then she leaves his house carrying only a handbag, where did the shimmering cloth come from?
Then she goes to the party where she meets John-blue nails, wedding band, goes to back to Onome’s house with John, only to wake and chase him out without a wedding band and brown nails.
Hmm.
Asides from the issue with details, it is a great story. I particularly loved how the story moved. In between you get to understand the conflicts between the couple, Izu and Victoria much like our story last week, I’ve miles to walk before I sleep. But unlike Hyginus Ekwuazi’s story it ends sadly with the death of Izu. Painful.
STORY
Izu and Victoria find out that their child of five years is a sickle cell carrier and both of them are compatible, I am guessing Izu was AA and Victoria AS.
This throws them into conflict and Izu walks out without listening, while leaving he asked Victoria to leave before he returns. So Victoria travels out with her daughter and returns for Izu’s uncle’s burial. Now they must resolve their conflict and they decide they should do so during the travel. But Izu cannot still stand her so he goes on a drinking spree with his friends.
In a twist of event, there was an‘accident’ which he supposedly escaped unhurt. This leads us through the story. The couple get to talk and we find out that Izu cheated on her with a colleague at work on her birthday. He came back with a lie that he had been having long meetings, she walks out angrily and at Onome’s house, two other friends join them and she goes out with them to a club.
After the clubbing, she returns to Onome’s place with John who has always had a thing for her.
Let me pause here to say something. This singular act shows me that Victoria is a self-entitled and selfish person. She goes to squat with her friend and brings in a guest to sleep in her friend’s room while her friend who owns the house sleeps on the couch. What! Who does that? SMH!
The next day, Izu comes to Onome’s house and proposes to her and they get married without her knowing that she was pregnant. They make up while still on their way to the burial and Izu tells her that he forgives her.
Victoria opens her eyes in the house, so we are flipped back to the scene where she actually woke up. Now we see that everything that has happened so far, happened while she was already in the hospital and laying on his chest.
Apparently the ‘accident’ actually occurred and he was in ICU and everyone she saw in her dream who interacted with her during the travel were all people who interacted with her as she got into the hospital. Sizzling! I absolutely loved that. I had goose bumps watching the connection.
CONCLUSION
A story can happen in the mind of the character and still come out so perfectly without the use of black and white or other weird hues for flashbacks. To write a book from this story though, the writer must be creative enough to use tenses such as present continuous and past tenses to distinguish between actions happening in the mind of a character, actions that happened in the past and actions that are happening at the present.
On the other hand he or she may jettison the mind play technique completely and just write a story that flows from the beginning to the end.
This is really a regular story of a man who found out that the child who he had thought was his for five years turns out to be another man’s child, only this time the twists added makes the story worth watching and definitely worth reading.
It is worthy of mention here that there is really no new story on earth. It is the way it is told that changes narrative and character and at the end of the day influences reader’s perception.
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