In Line

A thing that still stumps me sometimes is how a movie can have all the elements of greatness – performance, picture, art, music and even great intentions – but still manage to fall flat on its face.

In Line is an atypical story of a husband who returns home after a few years in prison and is faced with the uphill battle of readjusting to “normal” life. On the one hand he has to get re-acclimated with the social atmosphere – a lot of which consists of people who judge him and look down on him, and on the other hand he has to reignite his relationship with his wife – who by the way, he believes is cheating on him.

It’s a relatively novel idea and the possibilities for the depth of the story could have been endless – what with exploring the psychological impact of a person in a higher social class going to prison and coming back, or the angle of the fact that he was actually required to do his time in this corrupt nation, or the fact that his wife stayed regardless. So many angles! The storyline itself does well because it doesn’t push it in your face but it gives you time to wonder things like that: Like why did his wife stay? How come he still had to go to prison? Etc. However, no matter how well-meaning the story was it still managed to drag through and through.

Of the approximate 2 hour runtime of this film, only about 30 minutes of it is actually a movie – in that it is actually entertaining. In the last 30 minutes the drama kicks in, the suspense gets in gear and the story writer turns this relative snooze-fest of a film on its head into some form of a Pascal Amanfo storyline. The end is gingered, our only wish was that the other parts were equally as flavorful.

The cinematography of this movie was one of the most beautiful things about it. In fact, as the beginning parts of the story dragged, I found myself deriving entertainment from watching the shots, appreciating the lighting, the angles, the staging. It was all quite crisp and to top it all off there was the music. The music was beautifully integrated. It let up when it needed to and “crescendoed” appropriately without falling into that usual pit where the music predicts the story for the viewers. Hats off to Ava Momoh!

And then there were the performances. Oh such beautiful depth! From Uzor to Adesua to Chris and Sika, the actors here weren’t just relying on lines or music to accentuate their performances. They were performing with their entire beings. When Adesua opens the door and Chris is standing there and he looks at her then he walks to the side and Uzor looks at her then she looks at him and she hesitates and half smiles… we already know from the beginning that this isn’t the little leagues.

Which makes it even sadder to watch the entire essence crumble as the film goes on. I’m yet to understand what about it failed – except for the audio. Was it the story? Was it the pacing? It was definitely something to do with the length. However, as a strong believer in the school of thought that states that a good movie is made up of three things: entertainment, entertainment and entertainment (T.D.P), this wasn’t entertaining until the end so it fell flat regardless.