Movie Review: Where Love Lives

Where Love Lives is a story of sisterhood, fire-forged friendships, living in your own truth, and the everyday struggles of upper-middle-class Nigerian couples.

Where Love Lives is a story of sisterhood, fire-forged friendships, living in your own truth, and the everyday struggles of upper-middle-class Nigerian couples.

Synopsis

Meet Demilade, the posh but razz, eloquent but rowdy, fashionable newcomer in the estate, a free bird who has come to disrupt the empire built by Queen, the resident Queen Bee who is feared by all and sundry, and her minions.

This greatly unsettles Queen, who sees her as a wildcard that should be discarded. Demilade runs for Estate president, challenging Queen, and wins by a landslide. This victory opens a can of worms so slimy that it will make your head spin, including blackmail, an expensive lie, and the bad old domestic violence.

Thoughts

Now I want to make this prayer, May Ekene and Demilade’s kind of beautiful love find me. Amen.

The good

The script. Oh my God! The script! Funny, emotional, sharp, thinly veiled insults, full-blown sparring, and even some passive-aggressive bants for good effect. Like I said before, every single scene between Demilade and Ekene was so adorable! And I howled when Demilade gave that well-deserved slap to Greg and to Queen.

I love how the filmmakers attempted to draw parallels between the two couples: the Okechukwus and the Dekans.

On the one hand, Demilade and Ekene are in a loving, devoted relationship, in which the husband is a wealthy Igbo businessman whose lack of refinement embarrasses his wife. He yells when he speaks, dresses tackily, and misses social cues entirely. Yet he is also deeply kind and devoted. He calls her Nwanyi Oma. She calls him Obim.

Then there is Tunji, the refined suit-wearing, smooth-talking control freak who beats his wife to a pulp whenever she steps out of line. The parallel established between these two husbands is that of control, control fueled by love and control fueled by violence. The result? Just look at Queen and Demilade.

I love that Queen and her minions are not written as caricatures. Queen, while rude, has some hidden depths. Imade has a subplot involving an affair and blackmail, while Eno’s storyline revolves around fertility struggles and a possibly unfaithful husband.

The bad

Eno’s storyline. I feel like her character was the least developed. Whether in writing or performance, she fades more easily into the background, giving the other cast members room to shine.

Some parts of the dialogue felt cheesy sometimes. They did this mainly to Greg’s lines, where he sprinkles gratuitous French into conversations, either to complicate things or to show his nouveau riche side.

Whether he is a native speaker or simply posturing is unclear. It didn’t add anything to the plot; the quirk was easily forgotten, and his dialogues made me roll my eyes several times.

Verdict

Starring Uzor Arukuwe, Bimbo Ademoye, Osas Ighodalo, Chioma Nwosu, Emem Udonquak, Patrick Diabuah, Blessing Nze, Sosoberekon, and Big-Val Edochie.

Where Love Lives will tug at your heartstrings, and it is an enjoyable watch. If not for anything, watch Bimbo Ademoye channel her inner Alaba girl, dressing down whoever needs it.