The movie tells the story of 3 different women. Different generations but the same pain; sexual, physical and emotional abuse.
Rolake’s boss a sexual predator raped her
Mama Ada’s husband beat her to death.
Adaolisa a vulnerable teenager falls into the trap of a male neighbor who had been trying to sexually molest her for years.
The storyline was good. It tried to shed light on very important societal issues. Domestic violence, rape and assault. It was a straight to the point kind of movie, at no point were we unsure of what they were trying to communicate.
Acting and Casting was good. Deyemi Okanlawan is fast becoming the “bad guy” of Nollywood and I must say he is carrying it really well.
Toyin Abraham gave a good performance, she should consider taking on more mature roles like this one. I saw Sandra Okunzuwa for the first time in this movie and I was really pleased with her performance.
Damilare kuku was the lead actress and I liked her delivery. It was her expressions for me. You could see the naivety, the reverence and awe with which she regarded her boss; Mr Gowon, then the anger, pain and disappointment after he raped her. My only issue was that her character (Rolake) had a thing against washing her face or wiping her makeup. Morning, afternoon, evening, midnight o, she did not clean her face. It was disturbing to watch.
Character development was good. The characters were very relatable; even the annoying neighbors played by Etinosa and Zubby.
The emotions were real. There was so much pain but the truth is:
- Bad things happen to good people
- The rich take advantage of the poor
- Victims of domestic violence sometimes justify their abuse and defend their abusers
- So many victims don’t leave till it’s too late
- People use religion as a weapon to shut victims up by telling them to leave their battle to God.
All these and more were addressed in the movie, it was also quite instructive to rape victims and to anyone who knows a rape victim. Its good to see movies address important issues like this.
But there were some issues with this movie.
- The court case was a major let down. This should have been the highlight of the movie. Unfortunately it was a replica of the typical weak court scenes we see in Nollywood movies. There was no attempt to build the case and argue it out.
- Have you seen the movie trailer? It shows a bit of the court scene and it pains me to tell you that when I got to the cinema, I realized that there was really nothing more than what I already saw in the trailer. Nollywood needs to be more intentional about making court cases look and sound brilliant.
- Lawyers in the house, please put mouth in this one o. As far as I am concerned, the evidence that was used to win the case did not make sense and would not have been admissible in any court of law. I thought the other personal assistants that Mr Gowon raped would show up to testify, I thought they’ll find a CCTV somewhere in the guest house to use as evidence, I thought they would find pictures in Mr Gowon’s house detailing his perverted ways (because he had a pattern of grooming his young and naive personal assistants, raping them and sacking them). I thought they would locate the security guy that was in charge of the guest house to find out if he saw or heard anything. The case could have unfolded in so many interesting ways but no, none of these happened.
- How did the case go? Mr Gowon’s lawyer was winning in court, he tried to prove to the court that what Rolake and Mr Gowon had was consensual sex then suddenly, a lady (let’s call her Lady C) walks into the court and submits a voice note. The voice note was a recording where Mr Gowon admitted he slept with Lady C and he was sure she enjoyed it too.
- Please how does that prove anything in Rolake’s case? The incident with the lady in question happened years ago, the origin and authenticity of the voice note cannot be verified, he did not admit to raping her and even if he did that is a different case. So the whole thing did not make sense to me.
- Another issue, they did not conclude some sub plots, they just forgot about them. We suddenly did not see Ada and her sister again, where were they all through the court issue? What eventually happened to John’s case? He was arrested for attempting to rape Ada and after that nothing. Did they find the girls’ father? They just mentioned that the police will look for him the following day but it seems like they forgot about that part and never went back. I could go on and on.
Finally, after addressing such an important topic like rape, they missed the opportunity to equip the viewers with real information. Instead of saying, “NGOs are willing to help you, NGOs are taking up the case, there are phone numbers to call” they should have mentioned the names of actual NGOs that real victims watching the movie could reach out to, they should have stated actual phone numbers that can be used by rape victims, doing this would have made the movie more impactful.
Overall, Wildflower was not a bad watch. I liked the messages passed and the delivery was good but it could have been more.
Have you seen it? Do you agree with this review? Share your feedback in the comments section below.
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