Dreamwalker

Whilst reading the script of this movie, I had great expectations. I had a list of expectations that probably included words like sophistication, grandeur, mind-blowing, pace-setting and the likes. And after actually having seen the movie I’ve come to the realization that again, I should never have expectations and secondly things hardly ever turn out as great in reality as they were in your head.

Dreamwalker is a movie written by a pastor that depicts the lives of three women and their relationships. All women seem entirely convinced that they have some sort of ‘spirit husband’ that has a hold on their physical lives.

First there is Jackie Appiah who plays the bride that has been abandoned at the altar three times already all due to her spirit husband. Then there is Nse Ikpe-Etim who plays a successful business woman with a jobless, spiritualists-patronizing husband who is convinced that she is the cause of his problems. And then there is Tana Adelana who plays the wife of a successful businessman whose boss is determined to get him in bed at all costs.

The movie had a really solid cast exempting a few. Nse bowls you over with her a balance between angry/distraught and composure without coming off as that everyday gra-gra character. Watching her character you almost see her frustration develop gradually and finally reach its peak. However, I still feel like the development could have been better because between all the cutting back from story to story we kind of lost the emotional aspect of it all. Femi Jacobs as the spiritualist-patronizing, jobless husband was quite convincing in his character to the level that at some point in the movie I wanted to take my shoes off and slap him with the heel. His character had some of the best one-liners in the movie and Mr. Jacobs was able to deliver on the timing. At some points his character feels over-exaggerated but for the most part Mr. Jacobs is able to pull it together and create a scenario where not only is his wife getting frustrated but the audience is also feeling the frustration step by step.

Tana Adelana plays a childless wife who is trying her best to keep her husband’s young boss, Isabella,  away from him. Somkele Iyamah as Isabella is first of all stunning. First thing that hits you is just how comfortable she is behind the camera. The camera loves her like no other and she is able to work this to her advantage in the beginning. However, there is a huge ‘but’ when she is required to be emotional and vulnerable. Regardless of her fall in the vulnerability department, her master-level performance at the seductress greatly overshadows that. Tana Adelana as the housewife fits the role. She is convincing. She is relatable. She is like your sister. You feel her pain (maybe not the whole spirit husband part) and you ‘aww’ at her romantic moments with her husband played by Anthony Monjaro. Now I must say, Mr. Monjaro didn’t pull off some of those romantic moments but he redeemed himself in the hospital scene. I’m still uncertain whether it was that his character didn’t have much to it or that he just didn’t inject it with anything memorable because the character was simply just that run-of-the-mill and forgettable.

Jackie Appiah plays the three times abandoned bride that you really don’t pity because she doesn’t give you much to pity. Granted her scenario is pitiable and her desperate quest to rid herself of her problems are also pitiable but on screen none of it comes off as worthy of my ‘pity’ because the emotional aspect was lacking. This is not a spite on Jackie’s performance really because the emotional aspect of every other character’s story was also lacking. Alexx Ekubo doesn’t play a major role in this movie but somehow he still manages to irk me with his performance time and time again, if not in his silence scenes then definitely in the makeout scene. Now thunder would strike me down if I did not mention Okey Uzoeshi and innate propensity to turn a sour situation sweet by simply appearing on screen. No this is not simply talking about his looks, which is obviously something but not the matter at hand. Okey has become such a fluid actor over the months-years-movies that now simply seeing him on screen is delightful.

Some of the premises and assumptions the movie works on are really very unrealistic. Like, for instance, how easily everyone can find the other person without being told location as though they had a tracking chip inserted in each character’s neck. Also, the idea that an international company like Porsche would have Nigerian representatives, sitting in a round table in Nigeria determining Porsche car designs is a bit ridiculous and far-fetched.

There were quite a few flaws with this movie in acting, lighting and editing. Some of the extra actors really couldn’t have possibly been worse suited to the role or to acting in general. The lighting was off in some scenes whilst in other scenes the audio would be fluctuating. Quite frankly, I don’t remember when last I had to hold a tight grip on my volume controls so that I could hear the dialogues and not go deaf when the scenes change. Then there was the problem with the editing which seemed awfully cut and paste, in some backwards Nollywood fashion at most points. At many points the music would stop suddenly, no fades, so that dialogue could start.

In retrospect the only reasons to watch this movie would be for the one-liners from Femi Jacobs; character and also to imagine how much greater the movie could have been with better production. The core of the story is fascinating but the presentation was shameful.