Reconciliation

You know those romantic movies where two young people from different social classes fall in love but their family opposes it, and then they run away but they get caught and then the story goes one of three ways: they eventually break up because of this or they run away or they succeed in convincing their family. Reconciliation picks up from where the first scenario leaves off.

Again this movie comes off as something that must have been much greater on paper but in realization lost its glory. While watching this movie it felt like someone’s one-in-a-million great idea fell short due to lack of resources or impatience.

Reconciliation follows the storyline of a single mother whose son is kidnapped and the estranged father (who was previously unaware of said son’s existence) is looped into the kidnap proceedings. After he finds out about his son’s existence, both mother and father are forced to revisit their past and… well we all know how that goes.

The charm of this movie is that it is originally unoriginal (yup…that was not a typo). It was original that the story is picked up from where it is picked up but it is unoriginal because we’ve all seen this story but it is a different take and from a different angle. It is not predictable but yet it is completely predictable if the audience chooses to ask themselves the right questions.

As far as performances go, Ini and Kenneth do well enough. It did seem like Ini did a world of yelling in this movie (it might actually cause headaches). The kid actor was remarkably unimpressive, especially in the beginning, and he seemed overly rehearsed in his interactions with his supposed mother character and uncle character. On the other hand, Stephen Damian (who plays uncle Steve in this movie) who I usually cannot stand in every movie he is involved in, is still yet to become a great good actor but it was hard to miss the fact that he is getting better. We look forward to the days when he pulls an IK Ogbonna and revolutionizes into a remarkable actor.

One thing that gets me in this movie is the flashbacks. Thankfully we had the foresight to change up Ini Edo’s character’s hair in the flashbacks of 11 years ago, however, it’s marvelous that both Kenneth and Ini have the exact same body size and build throughout the years. Kenneth even has the exact same haircut and a full face beard… must be nice to never age. 

Reconciliation has a great premise and a fair enough build but it is hard to get past the fact that this was a great idea that could have resulted in a much greater film.