Wives on Strike: The Revolution

Wives on Strike: The Revolution is the latest installation of the Omoni Oboli’s Wives on Strike movie series. For those who like me have not seen the first movie, the Wives on Strike movies are a Nigerian cinematic retelling of the classical Greek comedy, Lysistrata, focusing on women who decide to use Sex Strikes to end issues like Child Marriage and with the sequel, domestic violence (Et Al.). The movie starts off with a familiar tragedy; the death of one of the women under suspicious circumstances which was revealed to be a result of domestic violence and so the women go on sex strike with a mandate to the government to end domestic violence.

Before the movie began, I was curious to see how Omoni Oboli would strike a precarious balance between an enjoyable and light cinema experience while still satisfactorily addressing the intensely complex subject matter of domestic violence. While the movie aims for light-hearted drama with a resounding message, it ends up as an absurd but admirable, cringe-worthy but enjoyable, tragically comedic take on domestic violence in Nigeria and everything in between. Despite not seeing the first film, I suspect that the “Sanitized Sermon” nature of the movie is motivated by both commercial considerations and Omoni’s tacit acknowledgment that in Nigeria to push an intense message, you inject levity.

The movie despite starring Omoni Oboli, Kenneth Okonkwo, Elvina Ibru, Odunlade Adekola, Sola Sobowale, Toyin Aimakhu, Julius Agu, Chioma Chukwuka, Uche Jombo, Ufuoma McDermot has no stand-out performances apart from Toyin Aimakhu in her familiar role of the comic relief who gives a convincing and effortless performance.  This is perhaps partially due to the movies stilted dialogue and an erratic story-line (there is a bizarre tangent in the second half of the movie that involves the familiar ‘local woman in a foreign country’ Nollywood gag that left me confused). But mostly it was caused by the jarring, ‘no man’s land’ feeling you will get watching the actors deliver lines suited for a comedy in a drama and vice versa while you contemplate whose idea it was to make a comedy about domestic violence. The movie concludes with its initial premise as in the rear-view mirror by suddenly leaping into the topic of political representation as Omoni Oboli gives the viewer a raffle-draw of feel good feminine empowerment.

Domestic violence is a complicated physical, psychological and emotional issue and no movie can be expected to fully tackle it. Plus in a society like Nigeria where an obscure laws exists that allows a man to ‘physically discipline’ his wife without consequences, the issue needs as much spotlight as it can get, so there is an undeniable and overwhelming societal context that cannot be ignored. Therefore, I will admit that there was a temptation to applaud this movie as a masterpiece because the fact that it wasn’t created in a vortex but to fulfill a need should be applauded.

With that being said, the issues in the movie could have and should have been handled better because for a movie spouting morality, it was sometimes morally wrong and dare I say downright sexist. For example, its premise of a threat of a sex strike with a week’s ultimatum to the government to end domestic violence was baffling and trivializes an epidemic because although a sex-strike would be extremely valuable in gaining media attention, it has little practical effect in actually stopping domestic violence. To say that a sex-strike can stop domestic violence is premised on the idea that abusers are somehow concerned with the wants and desires of their victims and arguably all a sex strike would result in is more incidents of marital rape and domestic violence. Even more disconcerting is the dangerous subplot that implied that the use of violence to fight violence (which could have disastrous consequences for the victims) is an appropriate way to deal with domestic violence and its indifferent and confusing handling of cheating spouse subplot. The movies exploration of these themes led to many cringe worthy scenes and if I was cringing in my home, I can’t imagine how the cinema goers felt

Ultimately, although the movie offers no real answers to the problems it presents, it is not a film’s job to offer answers but stimulate arguments and engage the viewer and for better or worse this movie accomplishes that job.