Social Media

The lovely thing about made-for-YouTube nollywood movies is that, while they are an entirely predictable experience with the most run-of-the-mill type love stories that are akin to mills-and-boon type romances, they almost always feel like a warm familiar hug. You know what to expect, it is often the same old faces from film to film and the production is the absolute minimum but it is cute and it is endearing. Social Media somehow manages to mess up this formula.

In Social Media, a struggling Betty (Uche Montana) does multiple odd jobs to make ends meet from being a make-up artist to a personal tutor for young children. Despite her situation, her life is smooth sailing until she makes the inexplicable decision to attend what I assume to be a secondary school reunion made up of people that bullied her back when she was in school. At said reunion, she feels pressure to measure up when asked if she is dating. And suddenly an innocent comment about dating someone whose name begins with the letter ‘K’ has her linked up to the famous social media celebrity, Keystone Danjuma (Okusaga Adeoluwa).

Her spiteful ex-classmates leak this information to the gossip blogs and the next day the biggest news in town is how a ‘nobody’ is dating everybody’s dream man, Keystone. Keystone does not take too kindly to this news and seeks her out to have her retract her statement, which she does. After this, she loses her jobs and becomes a victim of constant attacks on the streets. Keystone sees this and takes pity on her by inviting her into his home and as these things go an invitation eventually leads to a romance story.

Apparently, this film is a nollywood rendition of a Colombian movie/series on Netflix with a similar storyline. The title of said movie is unknown to me so it may or may not be true but despite this, this is already a very common storyline as far as romance films go. The issue is not one of originality here, it is of development. The before, the during, and the after in this movie are grossly underdeveloped thereby undermining every opportunity for the audience to develop a legitimate attachment and investment in any of the characters on the screen. More effort and creativity could and should have been put into establishing the character of Betty as was done for Danjuma. Save for the few scenes of her going to teach and doing make-up, little to nothing is known about her from an emotional stand point. Next thing the audience knows we are shown a clip of her accepting to go to a reunion that no one, including her long-time friend and roommate, can justify.

The construction of the plot of this movie is almost as laughable as the lines. Except, nothing can truly be as laughable as the lines in this movie. Certain film lines can be said to have been penned by a primary school student but in this case, these lines must be written by a toddler because what level of writing involves the main character constantly repeating “I am a simple girl trying to make ends meet”?

It is further frustrating because the film truly had the potential to be a heartstrings tugger. The performances from Okusaga and Uche were decent enough to elicit the required heartmelts that make YouTube movies immediate favorite. When considered alongside the constantly loud music that makes it near impossible to hear the dialogues from the actors, it is clear that multiple layers of shortcuts and dispassionate work have resulted in a film that is incapable of meeting the mark.

Watch ‘Social Media’ Full Movie Below