Baby Palaver

Human beings are simple creatures. We eat. We breathe and when we see iconic Nollywood actor/director/politician Desmond Elliot is in a movie we instinctively click play. In this case, what comes after play is the movie “Baby Palaver”, directed by Desmond Elliot and starring Desmond Elliot, Uche Jombo Rodriguez, Selassie Ibrahim, Enado Odigie and Jimmy Odukoya.

Without giving away too much, Baby Palaver is at its strongest a solid entry into the Rom-Com movie sub-genre where a woman (party girl and casual sex enthusiast Tiwa played by Selassie Ibrahim) who is seemingly ill equipped suddenly gets stuck with a baby (Kamsiochuckwu, the never-ending tears machine) that she doesn’t want but can’t refuse. So she has to make lemons out of lemonade with the help of her friend (fellow casual sex enthusiast Uche Jombo) and finds love (with sexy widower Desmond Elliot) and herself in the process.

At the start of this film, all the signs pointed to something positive with the direction, length and production quality especially commendable. The movie stuck to a familiar formula as we watch Tiwa begin to navigate her newfound responsibility with the script opting for comical montages; she absurdly sneaks him into her office in a cardboard box, she interviews nannies. Etc. and yielding satisfactory albeit tepid results with no real emotional effect. Although the movie did have some technical problems such as fluctuating levels of audio quality, avoidable continuity issues and most notably a truly godawful soundtrack, they weren’t enough to distract from the quality of the film or overwhelm the overall light comical pleasantness of the movie.

Generally, the execution by the cast was competent and convincing with the performances by Enado Odigie(Eniola), especially in the first half of the film, and Jimmy Odukoya pretty good and the casting of Uche Jombo in the supporting role as the best friend turning out be interesting and inspired choice as she genuinely seemed to be having fun in the role and was easily the highlight of the movie. The performance of Selassie Ibrahim in the lead as Tiwa was also fine with her performance peaking in the second half of the movie, although the accent was incredibly distracting and had me wishing they had just addressed it in the movie with just one conversation. Desmond Elliot as Alex (finally) makes his appearance in the 30th minute and gives a convincing performance although I suspect it was hamstrung by the movie never really showing how their romantic relationship develops. Plus I couldn’t shake the unfair hunch that perhaps the movie would have looked better with a younger cast.

At its end, although I’m not sure what exactly it was or even if the movie itself knows what is. Is it a rom com? A drama? A minor commentary on the effects of drug abuse? Or is it a chance to check out Desmond Elliot’s Afro (which I am still on the fence about). Perhaps all of the above but what I can say is that although it is not a great movie, it is certainly not a bad one. My final verdict. It is a movie you can enjoy without too much palaver.