Citation

Citation was originally released in November 2020, a year after the BBC Africa’s Sex for Grades documentary that spotlighted sexual impropriety among lecturers in the University of Lagos and University of Ghana, leading to the sacking of two complicit lecturers at the former. Kunle Afolayan’s movie was another welcome addition to this conversation, bringing to the light a well-known but hardly-spoken-about plague of Nigerian universities.

Here Temi Otedola plays Moremi Oluwa, a 21 year old prodigious postgraduate student. She is drawn to her brilliant and well-studied lecturer, Professor Lucien N’Dyare, for academic reasons, but soon finds out the professor has romantic feelings for her, after which she attempts to sever their relationship. But Lucien persists, first good-naturedly, then seductively and finally forcefully, in a rape attempt that Moremi luckily escapes. 

This story is told in two timelines, first in present day, where Moremi and Lucien face off in a tribunal constituted to judge the matter. Both sides paint starkly different versions of events—in Lucien’s story, Moremi is the seductress and aggressor. Second, the film narrates the events of the past that reveals Moremi’s version is the only correct one—Kunle Afolayan does not take an approach that keeps you guessing about who was right all along. That may appear a missed opportunity for a Gone Girl-level thriller, but his priority is set on creating a human and immersive story, allowing the audience to experience the feeling of crying out against an abuser and not being heard, in hopes that we learn to recognise and believe real life victims of abuse.

For this approach to work it requires the lead actress to be of exceptional quality, for it is in her words and action, in how she depicts the relationship with the abuser before the event, and the anger and frustration after it, that we get an inroad into the minds of victims of assault. It is incredibly rare for an actor to make their introduction as a lead in a movie of this size, but whether or not that had anything to do with her surname, Temi Otedola shows here that she possesses the acting chops to take on this role. The fine-tuning of her acting, however, especially in scenes that require more intricacy, could have done with more work.

So she pales in comparison to the man opposite her, Jimmy Jean-Louis, whose depiction of Lucien—as the doting teacher, the egotistic academic or the sinister abuser—is always with an authenticity that will have no problems convincing the audience to feel exactly what the director intends from each scene. For this reason, his character’s place in the timeline (past or present) can always be deciphered by his countenance in each scene, something Otedola tries but does not always succeed at. It also helps that the writers do a good job in fleshing out his character—leaving him as a boxed, stereotypical villain would have robbed us of a realistic experience.

Asides the primary supporting cast, Adjetey Anang and Ini Edo put in shifts as part of Moremi’s friendship circle, although the latter’s arc is handled quite poorly. Joke Silva makes a performance as Angela, Moremi’s legal representation, that is admittedly not as stellar as her legacy should promise, while Yomi Fash-Lanso is Lucien’s counsel, but all his lines are to his client’s ears and he is actually never heard.

Some of the movie’s most tense scenes unfold at the tribunal hearing where these characters collide, and these scenes intersperse the film’s main plot throughout its duration. In these scenes, Kunle Afolayan’s excellent direction shines in conveying the reactions to each new revelation, and his casting comes into play in the selection of the panel itself. Sodiq Daba, Wole Olowomojuere, and Toyin Bifarin-Ogundeji all have small roles here, and they look the part as seasoned professors of repute. Ibukun Awosika, former chairman of the First Bank of Nigeria, gets the most screentime despite being of the least experience, but she handles all of her speaking scenes quite well.

Citation’s plot does not require many twists or shockers, it is mostly a one-way sprint towards the finish line of whether or not Moremi will get justice for her abuse. But before it climaxes, Kunle Afolayan compensates for this low-tempo story with audio-visual mastery, and the only downside of this is that it is so good that the director often becomes self-indulgent, eventually causing the film to lengthen to an undeserved two and half hour runtime. For instance, Seun Kuti’s performance on campus and the days holidaying spent on the beach are visually well done, but they drag on for too long. Moremi’s boyfriend Kayejo’s (Gabriel Afolayan) hobby as a taekwondo fighter is relevant for the detail where he teaches her self-defence, but this does not justify the taekwondo scene inserted for no other reason than to show off good choreography.

Music, too, is another well-done aspect of the film. Most of the songs were composed and recorded by Kent Edunjobi, and the music is almost always African, melodious and most importantly, reflective of the scene in which it appears. The mix of languages in the film, from English to French through Yoruba, is another nice touch, as well as its depiction of West African culture and the well-written classroom discourses about international relations.

The film’s high quality production is never in doubt throughout its duration, a reflection of an adequate budget and especially, adequate effort and attention. If it has any flaws, it is mostly from its very nature: Kunle Afolayon’s vision of a realistic, reflective story stops it from being the thrilling drama it so easily could have become. Either way, Citation is a very good portrayal of a poignant societal issue, that also manages to fashion out of this an entertaining story.