Being Mrs. Elliott

More often than not, when an actress has to play a double role with personalities as different as opposing sides of a magnet, one of the characters is usually really strong and the other lags behind. However, not Omoni in Being Mrs. Elliott.

Being Mrs. Elliott is the story of a mix-up that changes four people’s lives. Omoni as Mrs. Elliott is returning back to Lagos from finding her husband in a questionable situation in Asaba when she meets Uru’s character. The flights are delayed and both ladies need to leave as soon as possible so they agree to share a cab. On the way, an accident occurs. One lady is saved and is misidentified. This leads to someone else becoming Mrs. Elliott and Mrs. Elliott finding herself in a village in Ekiti state married to the local healer.

Of course, with a story like this a lot of presuppositions are established. The audience is supposed to somehow accept that a husband legitimately does not recognize that his wife’s body has changed. You also have to accept that apparently plastic surgery does not only change your face, it also changes your complexion and your voice. If na so, I for don turn Beyonce tey tey!

However, if you are able to look past this, “Being Mrs. Elliott” presents a genuine romance as well as a beautiful storyline. Both the romance between Majid’s character and his new wife, as well as AY’s character and the original Mrs. Elliott show two different types of romances. In the city, the writer is able to show the transformation of both characters relationship and emotions without that concocted ice-cream-licking silverbird-going approach. The characters fall in love and we fall in love with them in a more natural sense.

In Ekiti, however, things are a bit more dramatic. There’s the backdrop of the beautiful Ikogosi warm springs and then there’s a stunning Omoni in traditional attire with AY in even more comedic traditional attire. Beyond the comedy though of AY’s mannerisms and confusing accent, they are still able to create the emotions in a genuine non-forced manner.

As far as performances go, you see the best of most of the actors in this movie. Majid is effortless and does not miss a beat even when he is not saying words. When he stares at the new Mrs. Elliott, it feels like he is staring at you and when he speaks you feel it. Ayo Makun, also known as AY, on the other hand simply belongs in this role. Asides from that accent which I could not place, you would think that AY was simply living his life while a camera watched. Sylvya was effortless and easy to hate in her character and Lepacious brought the jokes punch after punch without missing a beat.

However, all in all, Omoni still takes the cake, bakes the cake, murders the cake and eats the cake. She is fluid from scene to scene. She is convincing as the evil and is convincing as the kind.

The writing in the movie was beautiful, however, the one scene that was substandard was the climax scene at the party where all things are revealed. The scene felt a bit too rushed and could definitely have been better constructed.

The movie was not without its flaws though like the shameless and poor integration of product placements all over the movie, the occasional shaky camera scenes, the slap scene where Omoni slaps AY’s character and the sound literally comes a few seconds later, and the second fake friend (not Chika! Chika was born into her role) who simply could not catch an accent to load throughout the duration of the movie.

All in all Being Mrs. Elliott is definitely an interesting watch and it starts as soon as you hit play – no dragged out introductory scenes. The movie probably has the best hospital scenes you’ve ever seen in a nollywood movie as well as beautiful scenery and amazing writing. The best part of the movie though was that the end was not what we would have otherwise guessed.