Matters Arising

Matters Arising is a brief comedy about a village tax collector husband who is trying to abandon his homely but illiterate wife for a city-returnee that he falls for. The parallels between Jenifa and this movie is drawn because first and foremost ‘Matters Arising’ is a comedy and most of its comedic resolve arise from two things: the adulterous husband character played by Majid and his illiterate wife.

In Matters Arising, Ruth Kadiri takes on the typical caricature comedic character. That type that has been brought about and spawned by the success of movies like Jenifa. However even though she might be reminiscent of Jenifa, she is unlike Jenifa in many ways. While Jenifa was a loud village illiterate who came to the city pretending to be what she wasn’t, Ruth’s character is endearing and homely but also illiterate, with one aim which is to save her marriage.

As the movie progresses, you begin to wonder how these two characters even got together in the first place. There is brief mention about the wife – played by Ruth – being with her husband when he was nothing. But then this is something that is mentioned in nearly every movie and pretty much every household (everyone claims to have been with their significant other “when he had nothing!” – whatever nothing may be), therefore it tells us nothing.

As a comedy, Matters Arising, is “hit, hit, hit, done”. It does not dilly dally, it gives you the laughs and then it ends. However, story wise it is lacking considerably. This movie would be an upgrade for fans of movies like “Mr. Ibu” because even though it’s in the same line of comedy, it’s less mentally erosive. However, the best comedies have a strong spine. So even though you are laughing at the situations you still feel a connect to the story. If there was maybe a mention of how Ruth and Majid’s character ended up together, or some sort of substance behind the adultresses’ ways or something of the sort then maybe it would have had a stronger impact.

The movie almost feels like there is a couple living their regular lives, then someone (aka the adultress) comes into the story and causes a detour in their regular life pattern. The movie starts when the detour starts and the movie ends when it’s over, hence the reason the word ‘brief’ is underlined in the opening of this review.

Apart from the comedy, one other thing that does work in this movie are the performances. They might not have all been a diamond in the rough but they were definitely not ‘cubic zirconia’ (if you don’t know what that is – please google it!). Majid brought the comedy and was reminiscent of a younger Nkem Owoh in this movie. The only fault was he is supposed to be playing a village man in Nigeria yet he has his Ghanaian accent seeping in at the most inopportune of times.Ruth brought it in this movie and was subdued when it was required and also erupted when necessary, she continues to show different sides of her as an actor and her comic timing was on point.

All in all watch Matters Arising for the laughs but it’s not necessarily one for the shelves.