Aso Ebi Girls

If you are looking for an apt description for a jigsaw puzzle that leads nowhere, this movie will win first place position. Its attractive jacket pulled me in and I was eager to know what the movie was about, not that its title was any teaser but I lost interest from the first scene and struggled to sustain it as I had a task of reviewing it later.

It reminded me of some watery home videos  during the early or old Nollywood period when some self-acclaimed ‘prolific’ producers and directors shot back to back five or more movies in a month, and didn’t give credence or substance to the story they were telling.

So, I struggled with this movie.

It was hard to tell whom the story was about, although it has been established, somehow, in some scenes, and really over flogged, that it’s about some girls who had visited their village for a certain otolo festival to get themselves rich eye-candy men as suitors.

I waited patiently to see the display and intrigues that would be pulled by these ladies in their aso-ebi’s during the festival which I think is modeled after the popular ‘ofala’ festival in the east.  From the part one till the end of the two part movie there was no show of fanfare let alone a festival whose real life model is noted for pomp and pageantry. Neither did I see them clad in an aso-ebi.

The story seemed like a project where the producers had funds, and an idea, but no script, and gathered some actors telling them what was expected of them in each scene and the freewill to improvise till they lack words to say. Even the make-up, especially in a scene that required a special effect, seemed like the work of an apprentice who has not been approved for graduation but stubbornly called everyone’s bluff and went ahead to display his work. I even saw the shadows of the crew members in a scene from start to finish. Like they couldn’t be bothered if it was noticed or not.

Despite this malady, that marred what could have been turned into a classic traditional tale as regards our ‘aso-ebi’ culture, I must say I surprisingly had a good laugh in some scenes by actors like Ebele Okaro and Nkem Ike, whom acted as the cat and mouse wives to a retired soldier man,  Amaechi Munagor. They played their roles to perfection. Well, their classic performances didn’t make the movie a classic one, and the reason is because the movie looked like it (the producers) had underemphasized the very key role a good script plays in achieving a great movie.

Let me reiterate here, like I have done in previous reviews; every good movie starts with a well thought out and scripted story, don’t need to overemphasize it.  If they had developed the story in as many drafts as possible, I am sure these flaws would have been minimal or not visible at all. I wished the producer and the director had taken time out to work on the story like they did in making the movie jacket eye-catching.