Wages

Wages is an otherwise entertaining story that doesn’t quite make it to the finish line.

Wages tells the story of a group of women who meet in a hair salon and each relay the stories of their respective husband’s infidelity. Among the women are Bayray McNwizu whose character is married to Wole Ojo, she finds out that her husband is cheating on her by finding a used condom in his car. There’s also Yvonne Jegede whose character is married to Tope Tedela and she finds out that her husband is cheating on her when she runs into an old friend at a hotel only to find out that the man she is meeting is her husband.

All the women in the story struggle with finding a way to confront their husbands about the infidelity without being themselves made to look like the fools. The premise is a bit ludicrous but the harsh truth is that it is some people’s reality. All but one woman, played by Belinda Effah, is able to find a way to achieve her goal. By the end of the movie, all the other women listen to Belinda’s plan on how she hopes to get revenge on her cheating husband, and the other wives also concoct their own vengeance plan. 

Story-wise, the movie was entertaining. The set-up of different women at a hair salon sharing their stories feels real and comfortable. However, by the end of the movie the resolution is a bit ludicrous. I’m not saying this to support the infidelity of men but the movie goes from 0 to 100 in that none of the wives were interested in attempting to fix their marriage but instead jumped into the course of action that would lead to a definite divorce.

Now I hear myself and I know what I sound like but only because I feel like if there was an attempt to save the marriages (and not a mills & boons attempt, I mean a real world attempt) it might have made for a more entertaining conclusion than the one we got.

One of the biggest problems with the movie was the production quality. From the video to the sound to the shaky camera scenes and the randomly misplaced scenes in editing, it was obvious that this movie was a bit low budget. Granted, a higher budget might have helped make the movie more appealing but there have been greater movies that worked on a lower budget.

The movie had a cast of a few well-known actors like Alexx, Yvonne, Bayray, Tope, Belinda and Wole but there was also an array of new faces. In many scenes it seemed like the new faces were getting swallowed up by the established actors and could not hold their own when they had to share the same frame. It was also good seeing Yvonne and Belinda calm down in this movie, as they didn’t do a lot of the usual gra-gra and forcing that they occasionally tend to.

All in all, wages is an enjoyable story that with a few fixes could have been a much greater film.