Love Deposit

‘Love Deposit’ is the story of Terry (Chike Daniels) and his daughter (Dera Osadebe) who are trying to get through the loss of their wife and mother with the physical and emotional support of Oluchi (Onyii Alex), her loyal and trusted maid. I’m sure that if you’re not new to YouTube Nollywood with this single sentence you’ve already been able to put two and two together and arrive at the film’s conclusion but for some reason the producers decided to drag the story for almost three whole hours before bringing the film to its expected end.

In this film, as with all other YouTube films, the cast is small and action is minimal and so we are left more with performances than plot to assess. Let’s begin with Onyii Alex’s, whose delivery is the film’s first noticeable ick; a sing-song cadence that is annoying to hear. She uses this contrivance in her conversations with Princess (Osadebe). Perhaps she accepted this role of humble, honest maid as a break from her typecast; the figure flaunting, weave wearing roles she often portrays, but it clearly does not suit her. Alex shares a majority of her scenes with Osadebe who easily steals the spotlight in each one. The little actress is confidence personified although this confidence sometimes borders on sass especially in her scenes with Chinenye Nnebe who plays her aunt, Joyce, and the antagonist of the film. In fact you might even find yourself sympathizing with Joyce in her attempts to get close to Princess who doesn’t want to have any of it.

The best performance however, is that of Fiona Garba, who plays Anita, Terry’s late wife. We only see her through flashbacks but her few scenes are more than enough to crown her the best actor here. Her tears, suffering and sickness are all very convincing.

Watching the film, you can’t help but wonder why most Nollywood Indie filmmakers do not aspire for something more but simply content themselves in regurgitating the same old stories that lack any sort of complexity of character. The wicked people, like Joyce here, are wicked for no clear reason and the good people are, like Oluchi, suffering saints.

This three-thousandth remodelling of Sound of Music is particularly more annoying than most other films of its kind for the simple reason of its length. You can’t help but notice that if an entire hour was cut off at some point in the film, we wouldn’t really miss much. The plot develops at snail speed and many scenes just serve to reinforce what we already knew from the first few seconds; the bad people are bad and will be gotten rid of, the good people are good, and will end up together.

Also annoying is the fact that the relationship between master and maid doesn’t come until close to the film’s ending and when it does, it is rushed and therefore unconvincing. In fact it comes off as a case of codependency rather than genuine affection because Terry’s feelings appear all of a sudden and all at once when he hears that Oluchi intends on leaving them. Oluchi too accepts his proposition without any prior signs of a developing tendre for him and suddenly maid and master are fully and truly in love. Please.

The fact that she doesn’t give a refusal, even a weak, half-hearted one, or express any doubt as to the properness of her marrying her late madam’s husband makes it even more upsetting.

Despite its over abundant flaws, the film is still racking in its views which means that audiences aren’t tired of the impossible love story line. And this is probably more than enough motivation for filmmakers to keep giving us the same old same old. After all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

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