Trouble Comes To Town

This movie started out hilarious. Ruth Kadiri’s rendition of Loretta was amazing. She created a character that was cringe-worthy scene after scene after scene. There was a lot of blame to throw around and mostly in her character’s direction. But as I’ve previously mentioned, my favorite types of movies are the ones without any villains and that is what distinguishes this movie from being “yet another movie” to “one that stands out”.

In Trouble Comes to Town, Benny (played by Kenneth Okolie) and Loretta (Ruth Kadiri) are a couple who have been married for four years. After the birth of their 4 year old daughter, however, the wife turns into a shadow of herself. She becomes unkempt and could care less about her outwardly appearance at home, all this to the chagrin of her husband.

In the movie we see Benny insult his wife, nag his wife and shout at his wife to get her to change. Then we see her try to justify her personality by saying she’s tired, that she’s just had a child (who by the way is FOUR years old) and that she is just at home so it is okay. Then she wonders why her husband has not touched her in two years or why their relationship is falling apart.

You see the gem of this movie is the storyline and how it has been plotted. It’s been created in a way where everyone has equal portion of blame (like you know.. real life) and if you don’t pay attention, you might miss the message here. Loretta, the wife is at fault for letting herself go, for letting herself lose her identity, and for generally becoming a pig. Benny, the husband is at fault for not ever communicating but instead nagging (difference is that nagging causes the other party to become defensive, communication helps them see your point) and he is also at fault for going from 0 to 100 and bringing in another woman.

However, both parties are at fault because during courtship they never got to know each other and never asked the real questions about their real habits. They spent too much time on romanticism and not enough on realism.

It is unfortunate that in our culture we don’t “believe” in marriage counseling because if a counselor (a professional person with an actual degree – not just your pastor, your friends or your in-laws – but a professional third party) had been involved, much of the issue would have been resolved much sooner.

Now away from the rant and sermon and back to the movie.

The movie is not all roses and violets. There are problems with the production quality here and there especially as regards the audio. Then there is the issue of Kenneth Okolie’s performance. Kenneth has grown as an actor over the years but you see in this role that he has a little more to go. You notice this in the final bits when his character is going through the internal struggle of whether or not he made the right choices. I hate to compare actors but I feel like a Mike Ezuruonye would have given this character more depth and therefore brought more life to the movie.

Regardless of all this, I would still recommend this movie. It’s funny where it needs to be but it hits hard to those who pay attention.