My Boss and I

There are cliche, uninspiring and unambitious YouTube films and then there is ‘My Boss and I’. ‘My Boss and I’ tells the story of Sandra (Chioma Nwaora) who, in a bout of desperation to save her dying mother, goes for a one night stand with Davian (Maurice Sam) in exchange for money. Fate brings them back together as she ends up being his housekeeper. His inability to get past the circumstances of their first meeting mixed with the feelings he develops for her puts a great strain on their employer-employee relationship.

Normally in most films of this nature, I’m able to find one redeeming quality; an exceptional performance perhaps, or great chemistry, or even a beautiful soundtrack, but with ‘My Boss and I’, there is no such saving grace. The writing is very poor. The film for most part is not a line leading from one point to another but is instead an endless cycle, a loop that is formed after their first encounter and continues until a few minutes to the end when they confess their feelings for each other. I daresay that for every scene there is at least another almost identical one.

If it is not Davian trying to convince his smitten friend Steve (Hydra Aneme) for the ninety-ninth time that she is a runs girl, then it is Steve begging her for the hundredth time to be his girl. By the way Aneme must be commended for being the only one who tries to bring some life into the film with his attempts at humour in his banter with Maurice Sam.

The film’s dialogue seems to be almost entirely improvised which is not a problem if your script is solid and the actors are top rate. But with this cast, it makes the film an even bigger fail. Not least because almost every cast member seems to lack understanding of the basic rules of syntax and to struggle with correctly constructing even the simplest of sentences. The whole film is rife with grammatical errors and even when there isn’t any clear blunder, the struggle not to commit one is very real.

A lot of their conversations are aimless. While talking to her friend Kaffy (Sheila Alex), Sandra says she doesn’t like the friction between herself and her boss. Kaffy suggests she quit but she says she cannot because she has to cater for her two siblings; a full-grown man with a full-grown beard, and a jambite who looks like she could have played the elder sister. Later on she adds that she really likes him; why, when and how this happened, only she knows because we haven’t seen any indication of that. Kaffy then tells her; ‘You already have a place in his heart’. You wonder if the heart here is something other than the blood pumping organ because again, there has so far been no outward sign of an inner affection.

Even the director himself was directionless. There simply is no other way to explain the numerous mid scene cuts that permeate the whole bland film. You struggle to keep watching but the dry piano notes, the only music the film provides, might even lull you to sleep. And I if you end up dreaming, whatever your brain waves conjure in its unconscious state will be very likely be more exciting and coherent than this film.