Blue

There are heavy movies that explore some sort of deep and complicated aspect of the human nature but still manage to be interesting. Unfortunately Blue is not one of them.

Blue follows a young lady – Somto – who at first glance seems quite emotionally and psychologically unstable. She is aggressive and paranoid towards those around her and to those she loves until she pushes them away. She eventually starts seeing a therapist who is also going through some life challenges of his own and together they help each other grow through their situation.

The basic idea is beautiful, the effort behind the idea is commendable – the video quality is crisp, some shots are exciting – then on the other hand there are the scenes where the characters are sniffing flowers that are quite obviously artificial while claiming they smell great. For the most part the movie is overwhelmingly underwhelming. It is quite a drag from start to finish and might be difficult to motivate oneself to keep watching through. Granted, at the end there is the emotional reward that is expected (they all live happily ever after) but the question of whether or not its worth struggling through 80 minutes of drag to get to the 10 minutes of joy is quite unlikely.

The performances in this movie, quite like the story, is pretty so-so. Tina Mba plays the mother to Somto, and even though she possesses the ability to be quite a powerhouse, in this film she is relegated to the role of the stereotypical overly spiritual Nigerian mother. And her rendition of the role, though adequate is still quite forgettable. It’s hard to say whether her performance is to blame or just the lack of depth to the character.

Our lead character, Somto, is played by Adaora Udeh. In a film with a storyline like this, it generally takes a pretty strong actor to convince the audience of the pain the character is going through and take them on that emotional journey with them. Unfortunately Udeh doesn’t have nearly enough chops to fulfill this task. The attempts to use the music to heighten the emotions here are obvious, and are not as effective when the audience isn’t sold. In a supporting character role, where too much isn’t required, she might thrive. But as the central focus from scene to scene she does little to dissuade you from hitting pause and watching something else.

It’s hard to say what could have saved this movie but I would start with better writing that focuses on character depth and cuts out redundancies, as well as investment in actors who can command their emotions and display it accordingly. A film like Blue aspires to much, however, without the right elements it easily falls flat and misses the mark, as is the case here.