Don’t Cry For Me

Simplistic storylines are just not going to cut it this year. If you start a movie well, and spend money on it, and actually intrigue the viewer with your storyline for a bit and then you choose to round things up with some simplistic early-2000s-nollywood conclusion, it just won’t cut it. We need better stories or we need our writers to get creative.

Don’t cry for me is the story of a nurse whose seemingly perfect relationship suddenly comes crashing down one day when she returns home and finds a letter from her husband asking for a divorce/separation. Meanwhile, this nurse has recently taken on a job as the personal nurse to a friend’s blind brother. During her time with him, emotions evolve and drama arises.

The first half of the movie is very captivating. The story moves along effortlessly and keeps the viewer intrigued. The one singular part of the story, however, that shatters all hope is when the viewer finds out the reason why the nurse’s husband, played by Uti Nwachukwu, left her. Granted, the reason for him leaving his wife might be plausible to a certain degree but it just seemed like a huge cop-out. Like the writers did not want to be bothered with thinking about anything seemingly original and immediately resorted to the most simplistic conclusion possible.

In fact, in the scene where the husband returns he comes up with an excuse that he tells his wife as to why he disappeared. I found myself, at that moment, wishing that that was the actual reality because it would have made for a much ‘smarter’ conclusion to the movie than the unoriginal heap it turned out to be.

Joseph Benjamin plays the blind man in this movie and he did a fair enough job as a blind man, esp. considering that it’s not his first time (see “Dark Side“). Even better than his blind man rendition was his romance scenes. Joseph Benjamin can do romance with his eyes closed, all pun intended! Mary Lazarus, on the other hand, who plays the nurse is a beautiful talent and a steadily rising actress; however, in this movie, there was room for more. Especially her romance scenes seemed a bit too unnatural.

Yvonne Nelson, who plays the materialistic girlfriend of the blind man, is uber natural in this role. Yvonne Jegede is such an effortless performer and Susan Peters performs as though there was no camera in front of her. There were, however, scenes in this movie where the performances would check in (be really good) and other scenes where it would check out (look like they were simply rehearsing lines).

Don’t cry for me is a fair enough watch. Regardless of the disappointment in the conclusion it was still entertaining. Although at 2hrs runtime, it is a bit long.