DARK HEART
Oh, that saying, that, “when a good woman cries, the universe and all the galaxies become attentive!” Now, if that good woman should so much as utter a word in that state of her brokenness, the earth and everything therein swings into action for execution!
This movie is one full of deep lessons for kids and how they treat their parents. In the same vein, too, it speaks to parents to be careful what they say in that moment of anger or frustration as walls…walls, they say have ears.
Written by Covenant Nkem, directed by Ubong Patrick and Executively produced by Darasimi Nadi (also starring as Ada), is this movie titled DARK HEART.
PLOT
Jumoke (Scarlet Gomez) is a single struggling mother. Her daughter Ada (Darasimi Nadi) is all shades of rude, arrogant, and misbehaves badly.
Jumoke’s friend Bisola (Bolaji Ogunmola) finds Ada’s behavior to be highly inappropriate, offensive, and disrespectful. Yet, Jumoke seems handicapped in addressing this unruly behavior by Ada. Instead, she’ll do all it takes to give Ada the life she never had.
MY TAKE
Somehow, this movie reminds me of the film titled “SISTA” featuring Kehinde Bankole, Bisola Aiyeola, Blessing Obasi-Nze, and others.
The casting was a giving! The role interpretation by the actors was superbly impressive. While it would be hard to choose the actor who did it the most for me as they all ate and left no crumbs, my best would have to be Osarehia Oronsaye, who played Maria. She’s a natural and beautiful too!
As mentioned earlier, this movie offers very salient lessons to all and sundry. It is interesting, relatable, educational, insightful, engaging, emotional, and entertaining. The picture quality, audio, background sound, makeup, props, costuming, and location were good.
Although the storyline and plot were equally great with an adequate use of flashbacks, there were, however, some rough edges here and there:
Ada kept referring to her mother Jumoke as “Sister” The reason for this was never explained. In the movie SISTA stated earlier, that was what the kids called their mother, and there was a clear explanation for that. But in this film, that was missed. Or did I miss it myself? Maybe I did.
The character of Jumoke and her own mother, played by Tina Mba, spoke mostly in the Yoruba language, especially in the flashbacks. Post-production editing by way of subtitling would have done the trick, but sadly, there were no subtitles, and this, as a non-Yoruba viewer, was frustrating for me.
The poster is not very catchy. The actors on the poster are the attraction point. Picture this, replace those faces with unknown and upcoming actors, that would be an instant turnoff, I tell you.
Further into the movie, when Jumoke knelt down to beg Ada, that was uncomfortable for me. In fact, it was far-fetched that in spite of Ada’s dastardly acts and harsh words to her mother, Jumoke would still subject herself to such ridicule. It didn’t make sense to me.
The tragedy at the end of the movie appeared more like the writer’s tool to allow for a certain narrative of re-union, which then sort of weakened an already strong plot. I was hoping for a much stronger ending with less cliche.
If not that Darasimi has her way with character representation as per role interpretation, Ada’s attitude would have been far from believable as most times, they seemed overboard & excessive.
Conclusively, this movie on the whole delivered well. Message passed, and actors performed exceptionally with an amazing runtime, too.
The most lesson here for me as a parent is “It Ends With Us!” No matter how much our kids push us, in our lowest moments, we should refrain from laying curses. Jumoke was deliberate not to repeat what her mother did out of brokenness as she could see history repeating itself.
A powerful theme of consequences for actions, karma, retribution, regrets, and forgiveness, this movie comes recommended. Oh, and the title of the movie was well depicted, too.
Thumbs-up to all involved in this production.
Thanks for gracing this post.
Greetings!