Husband Shopping

If you follow Pascal Amanfo movies from his earlier movies to current days, then you know one thing for sure: you never know what to expect with his movies. Today might bring with it the brilliance of “Letters to my mother” and tomorrow, the foolishness of “Devil in a Dress“.

This movie was no different: we went in unsure of what to expect and came out unsure of why we went into it in the first place. Husband Shopping is the story of a well-to-do career woman who has everything going for her except a man. She believes that she doesn’t need a man but her aunt, played by Kalsum Sinare, begs to differ. So she comes up with a ‘brilliant’ plan to employ a husband for six months in order to get her aunt off her back.

It’s nothing we haven’t seen before. In fact, Majid Michel acted in an earlier/better version of the same storyline with Genevieve in “Silent Scandals“. The originality in the storyline is lacking but even worse is the originality in dialogues. I might concede that the funny scenes were mildly amusing, but the romantic scenes were too stereotypical. I mean those lines could have been written by a fifth grader.

Majid Michel was the shining beacon of this movie, acting and otherwise. The movie does not start until his first scene which is 15 minutes into the movie (am I suggesting you skip until the fifteen minute mark to start the movie? Maybe!) and the movie dies every moment that he is not on screen. Majid was the only one really doing any acting in this movie. Even Kalsum Sinare seemed to be channeling all the over-acting skills in the world for this one film.

Mary Uranta who is not a new name in the industry was quite painful to watch in this movie. In her scenes with Majid her performance could be condoned but otherwise it was just overbearing, lacklustre and fake. The actor who played the Nigerian cab driver was amusing and that’s about all the people who actually ‘acted’ in this movie.