Two Brides And A Baby

Two brides and a baby tells the story of a jilted lover who just happens to walk in on her ex the day before his wedding. The movie follows the upheaval caused by her reappearance on the brides side, on the grooms side, and on the side of friends of the bride and groom. It branches out to tell the stories of two other couples in the movie occasionally but not so much that we can actually deem them as subplots.

The movie has one main focus and it manages to hold onto it for the entirety of the film. There’s a bunch of back and forth between past and present, and its not done so dramatically – with clouds on the side – that you can tell that ‘now we’re watching the past’ but the dialogues expose them very intelligently. There is also the back and forth between couples Keira and O.C, Chelsea and Okey, Kalu and Blessing, and dare I say O.C. and Stella.

The story in and of itself is not anything fantastic, the movie and story are best summarized with the word ‘simple’. Don’t get me wrong though the production, sets, and costume were anything but simple in their detailing. It was obvious that someone had paid an immense amount of attention to detail so much so that all this effort was placed into arranging the sets and the costumes and the color, yet it comes off as simple and laid back and normal in an everyday sort of, easily appreciable, manner.

However, back to the story. The story is nothing fantastic. After you’re over the initial shock of picture quality, and you’re done being stunned by the beauty of the entire thing, the story really won’t amaze you. Most likely you will not remember this movie a month from now, because dare I say the story is quite flat. There is not much energy; I didn’t come out of this movie feeling sympathy for any of the characters, I was not frustrated at anyone, I wasn’t even in love with the people who were supposedly in love. The only single iota of energy in this movie comes in the Blessing & Kalu fight scene where she throws down and just goes off at a door and breaks a picture. I had to stop what I was doing at that point (and yes I was doing something else while watching it because wasn’t doing much for me) and just watch her. I actually rewound that scene just to see her throw down again lol

As for as performances go, Blessing takes the cake for that scene. And second best, if not equivalently good, was Kalu Ikeagwu as the yoruba man. A bit shaky at first, he came off, but he got it together and provided the comedy that fueled a couple scenes. Needless to say, the movie wasn’t really much comedy as it was romance drama

There was an obviously ridiculous mismatch and terrible pairing between O.C and Stella. At first I couldn’t wrap my head around how it would have been possible for O.C’s character at any point to have had an intimate relationship with Stella’s character. It appeared more like Stella was the sugarmummy at times, and O.C would just break if one wind blows. I am grateful, however, that they did not attempt to insult my intelligence by giving some flashback lovey dovey scene between the two because that would have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

As the villain, if I can call her that, Stella held her own and did an amazing job. But she did seem a little bit more energetic than everybody else, like no other actor (who was on screen with her at least) could match her powerhouse. And back to her being a villain, the conflict in this movie that her character agitated really wasn’t any deep-breath-hands-on-lips ‘I can’t believe that just happened’. The entire conflict has already been detailed in the title, so I’m assuming we’re watching to see how the conflict is resolved. And even at that the resolution was not that fantastic, it came quite easily.

The movie had an ensemble cast. Tana Adelana made an appearance and that lady is someone that seems to bring some special flavor of her own whenever she’s on screen. Keira Hewatch is an interesting new actress. Uhm, she definitely looks like she do more than she gave, yet what she gave was not lacking in that many ways. That is to say that she had her weak moments, more than most other actors in this movie, yet she was not that bad but one can tell that the only way for her to go is up, acting-wise. Okey Uzoeshi was fantastic and Chelsea Eze held it together.

All in all it’s quite the placid movie, it’s not emotionally moving in any way. However, if you look at it at some kind of foundation of what we hope for in Nollywood productions then it makes the movie that much more appealing.