Turning Point

Turning Point is an unconventional tale. Unconventional in the sense that technically it is a nollywood USA movie however it manages to circumvent all the annoyances and pitfalls of that ‘genre?’.

Turning Point is the story of a successful young Nigerian man, Ade,  in the United States – who also happens to be an unrepentant player – with a relentless mother determined to get him married to a ‘true Nigerian’ girl. On one of his visits to Nigeria, his mother tricks/forces him into a marriage with a seemingly innocent girl who he takes back to the states with him, and needless to say, things were never the same again.

Ade, played by Igoni Archibong, is the focus of the entire storyline. We are meant to hate him initially, laugh with him and then pity him, I suppose. However Archibong is not a very strong actor so for the most part – at least initially in the movie – you have to embrace and get accustomed to his lackadaisical acting.

On the other hand we have Jackie Appiah who plays the ‘true Nigerian girl’ wife to Ade. In subdued scenes she was interesting to watch; her exaggerated scenes, however, were not as intriguing as the latter. Regardless for the most part Jackie brings a certain degree of familiarity to the movie and makes it less ‘foreign/nollywood USA’ seeming.

There was also Oge Okoye as the American resident/hoodrat friend of Jackie’s character. She does not have that many scenes in the movie and probably for the better because her attempt at an American accent/hoodrat tongue was comical at best.

After his marriage, his life goes tupsy-turvy, and at this point I’m not really sure what the message is – is marrying a ‘true Nigerian girl’ the root of all problems? Or is Karma just an itch? – but don’t hurt your head trying to find the deeper meaning. As the movie progresses, the viewers interest wanes. Now I’m not saying that I did but you could potentially be otherwise engaged whilst watching the movie and not miss a beat because the emotional aspect in this movie is lacking.

The movie works because of the timing. No single concept is dwelled on longer than it should be. The filmmaker took the aspects that were relevant to the message he was trying to send, presented it, and moved on which is something I cannot praise enough.

As earlier stated the movie seems like a Nollywood USA movie but it would be insulting to classify it as such. For one it has a tangible storyline that does not revolve around lace weaves and ladies sitting around a round table thinking up ways to steal each other’s men.

Of course there is always room for improvement in things like performances from the actors, directing, etc. but for the most part “Turning Point” was a decent effort. In the end it is not very inspiring or inspired. It attempts to make some social commentary but the force of the commentary is lost due to a few “technical difficulties”.