Sunshine

Let’s start off by saying that everyone needs a friend or an acquaintance like Efe (played by Etinosa Idemudia) in their life.

THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAINS SPOILERS

Sunshine is the story of Wana (Bimbo Ademoye) who is engaged to be married to Henry (Emem Ufot). She starts a new job and becomes friends with her coworker, Doris (Matilda Obaseki Mozia), who constantly invites her and her fiance to “fellowship”. Sooner than later, her fiance’s mind starts changing and things start to be different in their relationship.

The first half to the first 3/4th of this movie story-wise, was on to something really different as far as our usual story-telling is concerned. This is because it brings up some valid conceivable problems. You have two young individuals living their baby-boy and baby-girl lives and about to marry each other when one discovers Christ and starts to question what path he’s following. That would have been an incredibly left-field, deep-digging storyline for nollywood. Especially following how he deals with that and adjusts the people in his life to his new world view. However, that all came to an end in that lunch scene where Henry looks at Doris and tells her that he thinks he’s in love with her. Before that scene our story is neither black nor white, there are no explicit villains – just stupid people who do stupid things like go to lunch with their coworkers fiance’s in the name of Christ. But after that scene, we become very nollywood and Henry becomes our villain.

Even then, though, the story doesn’t skip a beat. It looses it’s potential for greatness but it still keeps you hooked. You feel the highs with these characters as intensely as you feel the lows. From the moment you hit play to the end, the relationships are set up in a way where you feel an investment in your characters without being overly dragged out, and by the time our cliched ending rolls around, we feel like we’ve been adequately satiated.

It’s hard to pick a highlight performance in this because everyone came out swinging. It wasn’t until halfway through the movie that I realized that Doris was in fact played by Matilda Obaseki Mozia, mostly because her persona was so different (and very naturally so) from what I am used to seeing her in. So hats off to her for owning that. Bimbo as Wana is effortless, and even Raquel Anthony who barely has any lines managed to create a lasting impression in her few scenes.

The star of the show though was undeniable Etinosa Idemudia as Efe. Her comic timing might have not been 100% through and through but it was never less than 90%. Even when she falters she still owns it and has you rooting for her raw “Omo Wobe” persona. Then there was Emem. I have never felt so many emotions about his performance on screen as I did here. Throughout the movie, Emem does a fine job as Henry but in that one scene when he approaches Doris after her introduction ceremony, I couldn’t help but be impressed. He did such an amazing job controlling and relaying his emotions that even though I spent a considerable amount of time prior to that cussing him out, I started to feel bad for him.

In the end Sunshine is like a little sunshine of a movie, with beautiful people telling a simple story that didn’t quite allow itself to become the greatness (story-wise) that it could have been, but was still an emotional and engaging watch.