A Weekend To Forget

A Weekend To Forget is dressed up as the usual new Nollywood movie, especially one you would associate with the EbonyLife films brand. This Inkblot production features gorgeous looking actors in a setting that seems like a glamorous weekend vacation. And it is with this bait that the usual Nollywood audience is hooked unto a film that he or she would usually not have signed up for.

In A Weekend to Forget (AWTF), five college day friends reunite along with their current partners at the behest of Ferdy (Elozonam Ogbulu), a recent UK returnee. We have Shima (Daniel Etim-Effiong) and Layo (Ini Dima-Okojie), a real estate mogul and young doctor couple, who are happy to see their friend Ferdy after 10 years away, in the middle of which the couple have since gotten married, grown their bank accounts, and started on their grind to procreate.

Then we have Tito (Stan Nze) and his fiancée/manager (Erica Nlewedim). Tito is hailed as Nollywood’s biggest new star with multiple brand endorsements and an upcoming new deal with the telecommunications giant ‘Globacom’. Tito is thrilled to come and see his friends and especially hear all about Ferdy’s new business idea.

Finally, we have Bem (Neo Akpofure) and his girlfriend of one month, Lisa (Uche Montana). Lisa’s father (Akin Lewis) is notorious in the city’s circles for being a ruthless businessman who frequently stops at nothing to get what he wants, despite whose blood has to be spilled along the way. When all seven individuals meet, the initial joy and excitement is momentarily dulled as old tensions come to play. However, that is quickly resolved or ignored because it is not the main plot of the film.

The main plot here instead is a Nollywood take on the Knives Out or Kenneth Branagh brand of filmmaking (Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile) which is the murder mystery films. A brand that generally involves pooling a group of people together in a pretty and fancy place, inserting an unexpected death, and spending the rest of the film figuring out whodunnit. The parallels can be drawn beyond these plot points and down to the detail of the light going off that often occurs within Branagh’s films. Whilst AWTF is strikingly similar to that type of film, it is still decidedly different in taste from the inspirational material. Branagh films tend to establish a tone of underlying comedy early in the film that lets the audience know not to take too many of the happenings too seriously – a method AWTF does not employ. Despite this, AWTF still manages to execute the tricky play of keeping the audience engaged and believing the happenings on screen from start to finish.

The writer here, Joy Bewaji, writes through and through, circling from the end of the movie all the way back to the beginning to ensure breadcrumbs are left for the audience that tie things together. You see this with the drive over and how Layo’s phone starts to cut off before arriving at the destination to signal the fact that cellular network is poor at the house (maybe Globacom should have endorsed Tito after all). Seeds of distrust are also sown early with Shima’s comment about how after so many years, Layo’s mother still does not like him. Bewaji is so intent on ensuring tight writing that she adds in a post-credit scene to answer the question that most audience members were probably wondering about after the resolution. However, this is taken a bit farther than really is necessary with the on-screen text that followed the post-credit scene, because some things really are okay to leave to the imagination of the audience.

Despite Bewaji’s best efforts though, there are still a few questions throughout the movie that are left unanswered. One of which is the pills Lisa keeps taking and their purpose. There is such an intentionality between her father and her about ensuring the pills are taken that it seems negligent that their purpose is unmentioned. Aside from that, most of the loose ends are beautifully tied together in an engaging manner that moves the script forward. Sometimes, however, the desire to move the script forward gets in the way of a realistic flow of events. One of the most evident scenes of this is when the victim’s phone is discovered and the video on the phone is found almost right away. Even if you get past the fact that this boyfriend knows her password, truly, what are the odds that that was the first thing on her phone screen?

Performance wise, Elozonam really shines through here in a character that could have been easily disregarded if played by many other actors. Something about his effortless embodiment of Ferdy in the first half really leaves you wondering why he does not grace our screens more often to spread this joy. Then his emotive eyes and expressions in the second half truly sell you on the potential he has as a performer.

Erica Nlewedim here is dimmed by all the lights of the other actors. She truly is the weakest link on screen and it has never shown as clearly as it does in AWTF. Even Neo Akpofure of Big Brother Naija fame manages a steady balance of weak conviction tapered with glimmers of talent as the ‘left behind’ friend of the group. All the other actors truly bring in a consistent display of skill and play well against each other from scene to scene. Stan Nze becomes a whole new persona as Tito in a way that is distinct from his usual characters. Daniel brings in a little bit of the lover boy character that we know and love from his YouTube roles as well as a little bit of the Folarin character we first knew him for from Gidi Up. Uche Montana and Ini Dima are effortless in their roles. Simply effortless.

A Weekend To Forget is a surprisingly entertaining watch. Not surprising because you expect it to fail, but surprising because the twists and turns gently creep up on you and keep you invested till the end. If you plan on watching this one, a fun game to play would be counting the amount of times you waver on who you think is the culprit.