If Tomorrow Never Comes

Yvonne Nelson produced “House of Gold” and the same Yvonne Nelson brought us “Single and Married“, but with “If tomorrow never comes” she takes on a more serious angle. Does she succeed?

If Tomorrow Never Comes is the journey of a girl that’s told in hindsight. Hence, from the beginning we at least have the consolation that even if it is a series of unfortunate events at least it ends well. The girl was found dead, taken to the hospital, and then pronounced dead but managed to come back to life after it all.

This girl, Ewurabena played by Yvonne Nelson, lost her mother in her youth, was sold into slavery and then her life was followed by many series of unfortunate events. At some point in her life and during her slavery she meets a man, Kay played by Deyemi Okanlawon and falls in love with him. He eventually leaves for the city and she finds out that she is pregnant. From this point on more unfortunate events take place until she is reunited with Kay… and then the unfortunate events continue.

The storyline can be divided into parts: when she is with her mother, when she is in slavery, when she is in the shelter, when she is searching for Kay, after she meets Kay and after she gives birth. None of those parts are singularly original but somehow they managed to remain intriguing.

The success of ITNC is that no one part has too much time dwelt on it that the audience has an opportunity to loose interest. The story of Ewurabena captivates and intrigues, it is sad and it holds you and Yvonne Nelson does a decent job portraying this.

One of the biggest delights of this movie (asides from the crisp visual quality, immaculate music and delightful cinematography) is the casting of Deyemi as Kay. It is beautiful because we finally get to see a side to Deyemi that we haven’t been able to see previously in his usual playboy roles or his mental roles. The role gives him an opportunity to bare himself and struggle with emotions (having financial stability vs. giving the girl you love the life she deserves) visibly, and all the while Deyemi excels.

But the acting in this movie was not 100%. There were many actors that simply seemed to be rehearsing lines in front of the screen and they served to bring down the overall quality of the movie.

It is interesting, in this movie, to see an African story about an atheist especially because it is Africa and religion is more prominent here than water. In fact, even those that do juju still swear by their religion.

In ITNC, some scenes are overly dramaticized and some characters would have been better suited to better actors but somehow Yvonne Nelson manages to get us to care about this yet-another-series-of-unfortunate-events storyline and you might find yourself shedding more than just a tear or two in this one.