Jack’enneth Opukeme’s new film Aba Blues puts her lead character Amara (Angel Anosike) at a crossroads forcing to examine two distinct periods of love in her life, while carefully appraising the most desirable one for her.
Set in an unspecified time in Aba, and adopting the aesthetic of early 90s and 2000s Nollywood productions, the film presents a commentary on how a persistent former romantic partner can still cause serious damage by disrupting a married couple’s relationship.
Shortly after her wedding to Uzor (Prince Nelson Enwerem), Amara’s high school sweetheart, Dirim (Jide Kene Achufusi) returns from his studies in the UK. Under the pretext of getting some clothes sewn, he pays an unexpected visit to her house-cum-seamstress workshop, determined to revive their long-buried, complicated love.
Jack’enneth Opukeme’s shoddy screenplay fails to create a reasonable argument for why Amara should abandon her marriage to Uzor and return to her ex, Dirim.
Even when hinged on the idea of Dirim being Amara’s first love, the account of their past affair isn’t credible enough to crush her marriage to Uzor.
With no solid flashbacks to emphasise how strong their relationship was, the few narrative snippets from characters like Amara’s friend Alero (Toni Tones) and Dirim’s mother, Dame (Bimbo Akintola), show that their love was born out of teenage naivety and one-sided: Amara was intensely in love with Dirim, who impregnated and abandoned her to carry the burden and shame of a teenage pregnancy.
Besides its intense theme of a romantic trio, Aba Blues poses some questions about how past relationships and fractured family bonds can relentlessly interfere with marital happiness and personal peace. It begins with a charged confrontation, exposing the toxic and pernicious relationship between Amara and her over-righteous evangelist mother (played with fierce intensity by Eucharia Anunobi). Amara’s life is disordered by her mother’s irrational hatred for her, contrasted with her unusual affection and favouritism towards Dirim.
Aba Blues bears the hallmark of Tyler Perry’s campy style. Like Perry’s For Colored Girls, it paints subtle pictures of family trauma, betrayal, domestic violence, and sisterhood. Amara’s conflicted relationship with her mother is akin to the strained daughter-mother situation between Thandie Newton’s, Tangie and Whoopi Goldberg’s, Alice. Toni Tones’, Alero is an epitome of wisdom and sisterhood, similar to Phylicia Rashad’s Gilda. Both are independent in their thoughts and are runners of social commentaries in support of women’s liberation and happiness.
It also creates cluttered themes like domestic violence, infidelity, and class divide but they are flippantly treated.
Boasting a strong ensemble, the film draws from Nollywood’s current crop of in-demand stars paired with older and experienced ones. No character is exceptional but characters like Amara and Uzor render sufficient, gut-wrenching performances befitting of the roles. Other characters hover between less and excessive emotional inputs. Jide Kene Achufusi’s performance as Dirim is plagued by mechanical delivery, lacking the natural inflection his role requires while Toni Tones’ Alero’s happy-go-lucky acting sometimes verges towards excessiveness.
Putting a city’s name in the title of a film is indirectly promising the audience that the city is central to the soul of the story. Aba has an incredibly distinct, commercial and bustling identity. The Aba setting of this film, however, is nominal; there is nothing visually tying this film to the city. It could have been set in any city but Aba.
Though not a fully rounded film, Aba Blues is a good watch. It presents Jack’enneth Opukeme as a writer/director with a distinct style and one to watch.
*** Michael Kolawole is a screenwriter, playwright, and cultural journalist/critic. Catch him on X @mykflow
