Superstar

The movie, Superstar, on paper is uber ambitious. It brings to mind similar storylines like “Fashion” from the Indian movie industry. It has a few of the pieces that make memorable films like the aforementioned, however, it falls short of becoming one itself.

Superstar follows the story of Queen Ejiro (Nancy Isime). Queen has been obsessed with acting since she was young and fights everyone, including her parents who seize to support her, in order to become an actress. In the first few clips you see a few shots of her “acting performance”. This is before her parents threaten her with being disowned if she doesn’t study law, and at that moment, taking into consideration these “performances” you kind of want to call the girl aside like “sis if this is what you have to offer in the name of acting, law might not be a bad idea”… but it’s just the beginning of the movie so you hold back. The story progresses and we see how Queen meets her friend Cynthia (Teni Aladese) and her lover Derin (Timini Egbuson); how she eventually gets her big break and the struggles she meets along the way.

Then there is a bit of a surprise in the flow. The first main conflict after Queen realizes her goal involves Cynthia and Derin. When this conflict is resolved her life gets sweeter as she finds romance with Hassani (Daniel Etim-Effiong). The normal nollywood audience in me expected the movie to wrap up as they ‘both lived happily ever after’, but it did not. And that’s possibly the single best decision made in this movie because the better part of the movie is here. The heart of the storyline is here and it’s not just because of the romance. At this point in the movie there’s only about a half hour left but it’s the first time Nancy has true chemistry with any of the other actors/characters, it’s the first emotional involvement the story is able to elicit from the audience. So then when that final scene comes in and Queen recounts her challenges and her goals, you feel something because of Hassani. Safe to say that Daniel Etim-Effiong’s performance and his character save the film from being another flamboyant flash point in this season of nollywood fashion shows that we excuse for films.

Having said that Nancy is not intolerable in Superstar, however, she just doesn’t do enough to lift the character up. One could even argue that Teni Aladese in the lead role might have brought more life and depth to the character and giving it more shades. Nancy does enough, but in an industry where anyone from the director, the editor, the writer, or even the light guy can fail you a little more than enough is required. The supporting actors here though make the experience of watching this a little bit smoother. Deyemi belongs in suits from now on because he was that character. No one, though, was born for a character as much as Timini was born for the character of Derin. This probably has to go down as top three to five Timini performances I have ever seen. The car scene where he emotionally assaults Queen and takes her phone then returns it saying “so you think you can really continue looking at that phone while I’m here” enters into your soul and wrecks you. So one can only imagine the effect it had on Queen’s character.

Another shortcoming of Superstar is the production. The opening shot, the comical make-up that look pasted on and the jarring cartoonish graphics used in that “suicide” scene makes it seem like the message the team is trying to send to the audience is “please don’t take this film seriously at all because we are clearly worse than that Nigerian Spiderman film”.