Love And A Crowd

You know what they say, two is company and three is a crowd. The movie Love Is a Crowd takes that idea and runs with it as we are introduced to a blissfully married couple – played by Seun Akindele and Enado Odigie – whose marriage starts to loosen at the seam when family members are added into the equation.

It’s not an overwhelmingly novel concept but it’s the little things about this movie that make it worth the watch – or is it just because it is the first actual watchable nollywood movie we have seen in months? It’s the little things like the first 2-3 scenes of this movie. In that scene, we jump right into character development as we see the couple in the bed and the husband having a supposedly private and secret conversation with his sister while she’s on speaker phone to the hearing of his wife. That scene does so much to set up where the couple is coming from and gives us something to look back to for later in the movie when things start to fall apart. Unfortunately, that level of writing and character set-up is not consistent through out the entire movie.

The story of this movie consists of the main characters and two secondary characters who in themselves are actual characters in the movie. Are you lost? Turns out that the couple, or mainly the wife who is actually a writer, is in the middle of creating a story about a newlywed couple whose marriage is affected by family interference as well. Both stories are woven in quite seamlessly but it almost feels as though the fictional story was resolved too easily or left behind quite abruptly. Soon enough the story evolves into a Mama-G-rivaling sequence of antics as one spouse’s family starts to go at the other. It’s really at this point that the movie goes from “oh what unique writing” to “run of the mill”.

However, even the ‘run of the mill’ nature of the second half doesn’t make it any less enjoyable and much of this is thanks to the performances. There was no singular weak actor in this film to bring down the conviction. Instead, all involved are seamless enough that you might find yourself feeling real emotions of love, anger and resentment towards the characters on screen. The chemistry between Seun and Enado is as beautiful as that between Frankincense and Scarlet so that makes the movie even easier to watch.

Its pitfalls were many in the production department. The video constantly wavered in quality and so did the audio. Some shots here and there were confusing especially as regards why they were necessary. All in all, it wasn’t a perfect movie. Regardless though, it was a sweet and easy watch that might start conversations amongst those who watch it.