I swear, it is not. I promise you. Rather it is a retelling and re-enactment of the processing of emotions that I had to undergo while watching the much talked about The Wedding Party at the cinemas.
It still is not a review. Nope.
It was mainly curiosity and the persistent efforts of a close friend that led up to it. Curiosity borne out a desire to witness what all the hype and talk was about. Persistency on the part of my friend who just happened to arrive at the cinemas three weekends in a row just as tickets for the movie sell out.
The movie, itself fails at being a movie; would have probably worked better as a stage play. If only to explain why there was so much overacting. Almost as if the entire movie was being on shot on a small stage with the camera far away such that exaggerated actions by the actors was required.
Oh and the accents. Too many to count and undecipherable in provenance. There were so many of them spread across the actors it began to feel like a foreign language film. As soon as one got your ears tuned to one particular accent, there was the sudden need to retune the ears as another actor enters the scene.
The best parts of the movie were supposed to be the star-studded cast and the cinematography but even that was lacking in parts. There were so many empty shots, fuzzy shots, meaningless scenes and segues/transitions to give one a headache only minutes in.
The casting and characters should have been much better too. Ali Baba failed to convince as a Yoruba father, Iretiola Doyle’s role of a grumpy mother of the groom was so out of place it should have been in another generation and time. Like in Victorian times.
Of all the cast members only Frank Donga was truly funny throughout for what was meant to be a comedy drama.
Speaking of comedy, this movie was sorely lacking in it. Not even of the slapstick variety. And not certainly in the dialogue. As if the writers of the movie started out writing a comedy, saw it wasn’t funny and abandoned the comedy idea half-way, then decided to sprinkle some comic elements here and there, complete with corny sound effects.
All the above are not even the most egregious offences the movie committed in my eye. The most damning is the lack of a plot, storyline, theme; call it what you will.
The number one requirement of any movie, Hollywood or Nollywood, is that it have a coherent plot, a story it is tryng to tell. The Wedding Party does not. Don’t let the name of the movie fool you. The movie is hardly about a wedding. It is hardly about anything.
Which raises the more serious question of why it was well received and shattered all Nigerian box office records. Why were poeple willing to go several times to the cinema to watch the movie?
Have we been so deprived of quality Nigerian movies for so long that we are content and overjoyed with minimal quality?
Is that what we have become as a people? So badly treated by previous leaders that anyone who does the barest minimum is labelled a hero and legend? Despite he/she not offering any form of accountability and transparency. Is that where we are right now?
I don’t care much about The Wedding Party or how much they claim to have made only weeks after it came to the cinemas. I do care about those people that have watched it and how content they seemed with the movie. Including my friend.
We are capable of so much better.
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