A Casual Moviegoer Angrily Reviews of ‘Mr and Mrs: Chapter 2’

May 2, 2017 naijalife

Before I start this review that I’m not particularly qualified to write, let me just confess right now: I’ve only watched 15 minutes of the original Mr and Mrs – but I could still tell Nse was giving one hell of a performance. And while I have a lot of negative feelings towards the friend, who shall remain unnamed, that dragged me to see this atrocious sequel, one positive thing came out of the experience: it reminded me how awesome Rita Dominic is at her craft.

Anyway, when you take Rita’s performance out of the equation, you’re not really left with that much else to work with. I mean, I think the movie was trying to be topical by addressing ‘serious issues’ that are happening or could be happening around homes in Nigeria – a noble effort, but one that ended up falling really flat.

I’m not even sure if it was deliberate or not, but besides alluding to these issues, the writer barely even attempted to explore them beyond what was floating right there on the surface – and when she eventually tried to, it was executed either unrealistically or really poorly.

Anyway, here are the three main parts of the movie I really couldn’t stand:

The couple’s strained marraige

The first case of confusing writing shows up in the primary plot point: The husband (played woefully by Chidi Mokeme) tells his wife to quit her job so she can stay home and take care of the kids.

Now, the husband while ordering his wife to quit, actually has no job of his own or means of getting cash – I mean, I know the masculinity of Nigeiran men is fragile and all, but in what world would an unemployed man tell his wife to simply leave her paying job and sit at home.

The weirdest part is the resolution: During a heated argument, the wife tells her husband to “man up”, then they suddenly kiss and make up *side note I think kissing is portrayed as some kind of new frontier in this movie, but I digress*

Now, how does said husband man up? He goes and borrows money from a friend. I was just like, really? Your solution to this situation is to show him borrowing money. Not him looking for a job or a means of making money. The dude freaking asked for the cash via a phone call – and that was it.

Their son’s drug problem

So the son in this “disfunctional family” is a drug addict who happens to be in serious debt. Note: This boy couldn’t be more than 18 years old – he was taking SAT classes for most of the movie – so, I don’t how he was in like N800k worth of debt.

Anyway, his father finds out he’s in debt and what’s his solution? He tells the boy that “a man must pay his debts” and that he will send him to Ilorin to work for a year with his friend so that when he comes back he will be able to pay the money – and that’s it. So, uhm, what about you son’s drug problem, sir? At this point I’m just in the movie theatre like:

Their daughter’s sexuality

This may have been the most frustrating subplot. The daughter is a tomboy (well, the Nollywood version of one) – so of course she’s a lesbian. Wow! A tomboy is into girls. Groundbreaking!

So during the course of the movie she talks to her mother about it. The mother then says the girl is just saying that because she is craving attention. The girl is like mom I’m telling you this because I think I need help. The mother then hugs her and says “…but I don’t even know how to help you.”

Case closed! The matter is never brought up again! Like, seriously? Why even bother then?

Mr & Mrs: Chapter 2 is still showing across cinemas in Nigeria and if this post wasn’t enough to deter you from seeing it – for any reason other than Rita Dominic’s performance – then this really poor trailer should do just the trick: