A Toast To Heartbreak

Guys, you know that annoyingly awkward moment when your girlfriend finds a wedding ring in your closet that’s not for her and then your other girlfriend shows up when the other other girlfriend is at your house alone wearing the engagement ring?  I mean guys, we’ve all been there. It’s just an average Tuesday for the Terrible but Bearded Nigerian Playboy. And that’s where our movie produced and written by Ruth Kadiri kicks off with a bang.  A Toast To Heartbreak is billed as a story about a Casanova who finds himself in a terrible situation as the ladies in his life seek their pound of flesh and the movie is nothing more but sometimes less than this.

I have to start out with an open letter to IrokoTV on behalf of the Nollywood Universe. As time went by in this movie, I could see a somewhat ambitious idea begin to materialize, a story told through flashbacks, one scene expertly stretched for the length of a movie. Except. This wasn’t a short film. So IrokoTV, if you want to make short films. Make short films. But don’t do this. This absurd imperfectly executed middle ground. Otherwise what we have is meaningless scenes, pointless aerial views and having to listen to five minutes of a techno soundtrack to fill up time.

This brings us to the movie’s plot. Now ladies in the house, I’m not sure what the typical reaction of a woman to what I admit is not a typical situation would be, and I’ll admit that Ruth Kadiri is in a much better position to show us this atypical reaction with her screenplay. That being said, I was confused by the movie’s plot and left wondering what the point of all this was. Or if there was even a story to tell at all. This wasn’t helped by the dialogue which at its best wasn’t compelling enough to elevate the film past something which plays in the background while you let your mind idly roll on, numb to what you are seeing on screen. And which at its worst was worse than anything I’ve heard in a while.  Also if you are someone that needs creativity in movie settings and has a problem with producers blatantly recycling sets, this movie is not for you.

Regrettably, a larger than typical part of this film hinged on the performances by its cast and although the characterization initially paint an interesting contrast between the streetwise wild Theresa (Mercy Obaka), the classier albeit remarkably gullible Mina (Ruth Kadiri) and thecrazy Lilliana (Moyo Lawal), the performances were not close enough to what this movie required to be good. But in the Battle of the Side Chicks, #team Theresa just for delivering easily the funniest line of the movie.  Michael the bearded demon (played by Kenneth Okolie) gives the best performance in the movie although the motives behind his manipulation were sadly mishandled. Maybe he gets off from misogyny? Maybe he’s a nymphomaniac that needs variety? Maybe he is addicted to infidelity? Maybe he is a closeted homosexual that is overcompensating? We never really find out and the only thing we know for sure is that men can lie.

The most painful part of all this is that you know how Scorsese showed the extreme danger of toxic masculinity with the 1976 Taxi driver? Ignoring my unfair comparison, perhaps if this movie was handled well, there would be some redeeming quality. Maybe it would have had some deeper undertones of social commentary about a society that has normalized infidelity or at least humanizes and gives a face to real women left as casualties of war because of the inability of men to keep it in their pants. But this movie doesn’t try to be anything and I’ll save you the trouble of watching to see what I mean by explaining. In the end text scrawled on the screen, the movie misspells the word curses and that I think this error summarizes the entire film. You can forgive a movie for trying and failing, you shouldn’t forgive it for not trying at all. Thus I am officially announcing a hiatus from Ruth Kadiri produced films.