The Happy.ness Ltd

Not all types of movies are intended for all audiences and the Happy.ness Ltd is one of such films. The play on words, thoughts and feelings starts from the name itself and the intentional misspelling of ‘happiness’ in order to highlight the word ‘happy’.

The movie is about a young father with a burnt face who wants to work but even though he is qualified, is unable to find work because of his face. He has a daughter in the hospital and he needs funds in order for her treatment to move forward but he is unable to get these because he can’t find work. Eventually he gets a job as a mascot and falls for a prostitute living in his neighborhood.

The movie has great intentions and lofty ideas and you can tell this from the moment you press play. There are moments when you notice how the director would like you to feel – moments like the scene in the commercial bus when the little boy just stares at our lead’s face and cries continuously. The moment leading up to that scene itself was not necessarily any less heartbreaking with our lead being dropped from a job because of his face. You can tell that the movie makers want you to feel the rawness and realness of the moment – without any music to lessen the effect. And they achieve this sometimes but then they loose impact and strength as the movie goes on.

As the film continues, we learn about his daughter who is supposedly with his mother while waiting to get treatment – the treatment that he needs to pay for but cannot afford. We are introduced to the existence of this character and even though references are intermittently made to her during the movie, the character still doesn’t feel real at the end and the urgency to save her doesn’t come through. We are not asking for a flashback or an actual scene with the actual daughter but whatever the cause was, the daughter’s inclusion seemed to not have been fully fleshed out. This is made even more pronounced when the end of the movie comes around and our character supposedly gets some form of happy ending but no mention is made to his daughter again.

The film is clearly a low budget one and you feel it at many points in the movie but still we must commend the make up artist for creating a face that sends the message. Tope Tedela as our main lead does a good job of working with what he is provided in the character of Gregory, and then there’s Kiki Omeili who sells the prostitute thing without hesitation and nails it in her monologue at the end about why he shouldn’t love a prostitute. Regardless of these though, my standout is still Gregory Ojefua for one reason – the life that he brings to the screen. It might just be the character that he is playing but I refuse to believe that it is that alone. He lights up the character from the inside in a way that only he can.

In the end The Happy.ness Ltd is a great attempt that starts off with a lot of fire and focus but looses some of that in the storyline as the movie goes on. .