Kokomma

Kokomma is a run of the mill story about a poor 18 year old girl who moves to Lagos and takes up a housegirl job in order to support her family. She is constantly faced with numerous perverted men seeking to take advantage of her innocence, and if this was your regular nollywood synopsis it would end something like this ‘do they succeed, watch the movie and find out?’

There really is nothing special or different about the movie ‘kokomma’, if you complained that recent Ugezu. J. Ugezu films are unoriginal well then this movie takes us back – way back – to the original Nollywood formula, no minus no plus.

Kokomma is the first Ibibio-Language movie I’ve ever seen, I tried seeing Okon Lagos when it released but the subtitles were out of whack and the experience was not pleasing. For this reason I have to commend the production team of Kokomma, the subtitles never leave you hanging for a moment.

The movie brings up a valid societal problem as regards the issue of rape, “why is it that when such things happen the blame is always on the girl?” If there was an iota of originality in this movie, then it came with the way the madam handled the situation post her house girl getting pregnant.

The ending of the movie is a bit anti-climactic, if I can call it that, because it just seems empty. It seems to fall flat on its face at the end. Like a musician’s note that just crescendos and crescendos and crescendos and when the time comes for the grand finale, he just stops.

So the end was quite disappointing, but one thing that was not so disappointing were the performances. Without a sliver of doubt the standout performance in this movie was Ms. Ini Ikpe. She held her own from scene to scene. Had control of her emotions in the highs and in the lows, something no other actor in this movie can boast of.

I’m made to believe that Kokomma was Belinda Effah’s first movie, maybe it was maybe it wasn’t, but she definitely did a good job holding her emotions especially in the lows. However, when the confrontation scenes came towards the end, she like some other actors in this movie did not do as well. Ekere Nkanga as the husband did an amazing job.