Still Falling

I actually don’t have a problem with nonsense films. I feel like it is important to mention that. For instance, I personally watched “The Wedding Party” more times than I am comfortable admitting, I loved all Madea movies and I can sit the 3 hours straight for S. S. Rajamouli films. However, the key to selling nonsense in films is in the world building. This is an arena that Still Falling appears to not know the address to.

Still Falling is the story of Bono (Sharon Ooja) and Lagi (Daniel Etim Effiong). Two ex-university lovers who meet seven years later and have to deal with the demons they left behind when last they saw. In his uni days, Lagi was an a physically, emotionally and psychologically abusive boyfriend to a meek and compliant Bono. Seven years later, much has changed. Lagi has dedicated his life to Christ and Bono has dedicated her life away from Christ. They meet in a flight that Lagi is piloting for Bono and immediately afterwards we see Lagi claiming that she is his soulmate. And thus begins a movie where things just proceed to happen without making any sense.

Lagi explains to his friends and the audience as well the depth of his abuse to Bono back in the day. And one of his friends declares therein that he should ‘forgerrabourrit’ because no girl will take you back after that. Or so we thought, next thing we see baby girl all dressed up and having dinner with a man who traumatized her youth. A person whose trauma was so intense that it basically shaped everything about who she later becomes. Towards the end, there’s a switcharoo that somebody will try to use as an excuse for why things happened so quickly. However, I beg to disagree. Even though things weren’t what they seemed, the kind of abuse mentioned by both parties takes a lot more than the measly circumstances shown for both parties to even get to a point where they can sit and giggle over dinner.

Still Falling is shoddily written and grossly underperformed. The writing needed a lot more layers for the subject matter it had selected, and the acting required a layered actor and Sharon Ooja was just not it. Bless her heart, she appears a sweetheart but in the moments that required brokenness, deep seated anger, and a reframing of mind, Sharon just wasn’t equipped with the tools to convey that depth. Daniel as Lagi brings enough to the character but even in his trying you can see that the character Lagi is not written completely enough for him to make much impact.

In the end it appears Still Falling was actually just a new generation Zion movie. However, as far Zion movies go in this generation, we made “God Calling” so I know that we are capable of doing better. The first failure was the writing, the second was the lead and the third was the editing. There are scenes that appeared to be written in a manner where they are blended together so that they each play off each other. However, when it came together on screen the effect was all the way lost.