On Bended Knees

Chioma Chukwuka’s production debut, on bended knees, attempt to tell a novel but relevant story in relation to the leaders of the Church and their familes. But in the end, however good the intentions were for making the movie and however relevant the storyline might be, “On Bended Knees” as a movie just didn’t do it for me.

Back in high school whenever I’d write a paper, my professor would return it to me and say ‘Show, don’t tell’. This basically means, don’t tell me the character was lonely, show me that the character was lonely. Don’t tell me he fell in love with her, show me that he fell in love with her. And even though they did attempt to show most of these things in the movie they didn’t do it completely because I should be able to know what these characters are feeling before they verbalize based solely on what I’ve seen. Unfortunately, for this movie, that didn’t happen very often.

I’m a huge Seun Akindele fan. As far as someone can be a fan of a Nollywood actor, I am that for Seun, but unfortunately in this movie I wasn’t feeling anything. I don’t know if it’s his character that just doesn’t connect, or the lines that just seem out of place, or maybe Seun was struggling in the beginning but at first I got the impression that he as well as Chioma Chukwuka were both reciting their lines. It did get a bit better towards the end though.

Chioma Chukwuka as well was also not overly impressive in this movie. I feel like I’ve seen better from her in these made-in-Asaba productions. She did appear to be reciting lines initially and then I wasn’t getting any feeling from her character and I wasn’t feeling anything for her character, so that connection was not existent in this movie.

Chet Anekwe, on the other hand, I absolutely adore. He does a decent job in this movie, it does take a certain type of actor to say these cheesy lines and not seem utterly ridiculous. Most of the supporting actors were fair enough, however others were weak.  We have the drug addict ex-wife who reminds me of a Nollywood USA actress with her overly dramatic gestures, and there is Sylvia Oluchi who I loved from “Bent Arrows” and manages to hold it down quite well in this movie.

At the end of the day, I get the message. Although, I would rather have read a paragraph or two on this than have watched movie, I think the paragraph might have done a better job of eliciting emotions from me because this didn’t do it for me in that category. On bended knees is an educative movie, and if you can watch it without picking at it then I don’t doubt that you might enjoy it.