How Not To Fall In Love

“How Not To Fall in Love” is the story of two people (played by IK Ogbonna and Omotu Bissong) whose parents had betrothed them to one another at an early age. Before their official meeting, they meet in a situation that causes them to grow to dislike each other (even though in reality… I didn’t think the accident was that serious). When they are informed of their betrothal they adamantly refuse. The elders decide that they will allow them to have their way but only after they spend two weeks living together.

The movie has very good intentions but somewhere in execution, these intentions were ruined. Two major things that brought the quality of the movie down were acting and writing. These two factors put together resulted in a couple with zero on screen chemistry making it difficult for even the audience to root for the inevitable happy ending.

The progression of scenes could have been written and directed in a manner where we actually fall in love along with the characters. Instead we have a few funny scenes here and there but mostly a jumble of improbable nonsense happening one after the other. Improbable nonsense such as the scene where Emeka, a friend to the guy, shows up and starts telling the girl that he loves her and bought her a gift and she just swallows it all up? Babe, are you living in a Disney fairy tale where people switch personalities overnight? 

Then there is the conflict of their meeting which was way too superficial to cause two grown adults to develop such deep seeded hatred towards one another. Who goes around making lifelong enemies because someone mistakenly splashed poto-poto on you by the road?

Then there is the issue of performances. Just to get it out straight away Stan Nze was definitely the standout performance in this movie because he manages to surprisingly take control of the frame even when both leads were in the same frame. He did really well as comedic relief and held his own from start to finish.

The two leads – IK Ogbonna and Omotu Bissong – were definitely ‘something’ to watch. For a majority of the movie it seemed like IK was leading while Omotu was tailing behind. When Omotu gives an all out performance (for instance, in the many scenes where she confronts IK’s character) it still feels like a performance. The lag was most glaring in the final scene where IK was very evidently giving x10 to the performance and Omotu was straddling x2. Ms Bissong still has a ways to grow acting wise or might just need the right role, but either way we are eagerly waiting to see the best from her.