One Moment In Time

If movies like “Living with a Ghost” and “The Duplex” are any indication, then ghost stories are gradually becoming quite an entertaining genre of nollywood films… at least to me (for some inconceivable reason many people don’t agree).

One Moment in Time had a similar appeal to it. It’s the story of a happy couple who are yet to be blessed with a child after seven years of marriage. This is an issue that gravely bothers the wife, Odion played by Kehinde Olorunyomi, but the husband, Temisan played by Mike Ezuruonye, seems unperturbed. Soon enough Odion finds out that Temisan has a son outside his matrimonial home before the drama of the infidelity has enough time to play out, Temisan gets in a nasty accident and returns as a ghost.

The appeal of ghost stories, especially for nollywood movies, might be in the openings it creates. If you followed that storyline of a happy couple then secretly cheating husband you’ll find that at a certain point there’s not much that can be done. There’s no deviation from that storyline that is original. However when you add ‘ghost’ into it, many more possibilities become viable. The question then becomes, is the writer going to try something new? And is it going to work out?

None of those happened in this movie. It had a blissfully predictable ending and I am not even mad. The character of Temisan, as presented by Mike Ezuruonye, is easy to love. So by the end of the movie, even the viewers, along with Odion, are rooting for him. Mike did a great job giving this character life, Kehinde on the other hand is an actress who seems to still be struggling with finding that fine taste in between doing the things an actor does versus getting the audience to forget that they are watching an actor. In that regard, her performance could have used a little salvation.

Story-wise this movie does get you. It keeps you engaged from start to finish without any extraneous and excessive scenes. For those who don’t know, the screenplay of the movie is done by Kehinde Olorunyomi (for a list of all her home video works click here, and for cinema works click here) who seems to really have a knack for writing engaging storylines.

Seun Akindele, in this movie, plays the role called ‘timekeeper’ which I interpreted to self as essentially the ‘headmaster ghost’. Whenever he appears it’s kind of without warning and technically scary (at least we believe it was supposed to be). However, knowing that some of us are shameless *clears throat* and considering that Mr. Akindele was looking very dapper in this movie, whenever he does appear it elicits more of a gasp and an increase in attention than it does any sort of fright.

Performance wise, this movie does alright. Story wise, it will keep your attention for the length of the movie. Production-wise, it was not perfect but no errors were glaring enough to interrupt the viewing experience.