African Movie Review

Before The Light ~2009
Story – Kehinde Olurunyomui, Desmond Elliot
Screenplay – Kehinde Olurunyomi
Additional Screenplay – Omoni Oboli, Linc Edochie
Director – Ikechukwu Onyeka

Starring:
Ini Edo – Timi
Mercy Johnson – Tamuno
Desmond Elliot – Harold
Eric Arubayi – Patrick
Richard Mofe Damijo
Zainab Ademola

Themes:
Mortality
Forgiveness
Terminal Illness
Step-Families

My Rating – 70%

Timi and Harold have been married for 4 years and are parents to a little boy called David. David, however is not Timi’s biological son, although she has been raising him as such. The relationship becomes rocky when David’s real mother returns to Nigeria from the US after being diagnosed with cancer. Harold’s daily visits to the hospital become a source of discord within the relationship, and Timi feeling insecure in the relationship turns elsewhere.

*************SPOILERS*************

Mercy was excellent playing the cancer patient. She really looked like she had taken a battering, like she really had gone through chemotherapy, shaved head and all. Some actresses like to add glamour when the role does not call for it (Can we say Vivky Zugah playing a lowly maid and rocking the false lashes?), but I’m pleased to say that Mercy played her role perfectly. The most emotionally touching scenes were her crying scenes. She really showed her versatility because we all know that Mercy is able to cry buckets on the spot. The crying here was those understated, corner of the eye tears, and were even more powerful than if she had been crying buckets.

Wow!!! Patrick’s (played by Eric Arubayi) teeth were three quarters gum, like a little bit of tooth was poking through a never ending mass of gum. Did anybody else notice that?

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Tamuno and Harold’s relationship did not end because the love died but rather because Harold loved her enough to let her to to pursue her dreams of becoming a pilot in the USA. You can see this in the way that he speaks so fondly and highly of her. The chemistry between Mercy and Desmond emanated strongly every time they were on screen together.

The timeline was a bit off kilter I thought. We see that Timi has a baby with Patrick but it seemed like she had just moved in. Where did all that time go? I thought Timi referring to the child she had raised as “that boy” was a little unbelievable. This was a child that knew no other mother. So was she acting the whole time when pretending to care about the child, or were they just words of anger designed to hurt Harold?

I didn’t like the way that the pastor told Harold to get back with his wife with no reasoning behind it or exploring the fact that she has a kid with someone else. He does not even try to convince him that his wife is sorry for her behaviour… Nothing! What kind of pastor is that? He tells him,

“Just let her move back and let God to the rest.”
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The movie started off really well but then towards the very end it started getting a bit boring as there were too many irrelevant church scenes. The church scenes were way too long and too much music and non dialogue scenes where there characters are thinking. We don’t wanna see that!!! For all those wanting to catch RMD, he isn’t actually in it much, no matter how big his face his face is on the cover. Nevertheless I would recommend it. I liked the storyline and it is worth watching just to see Mercy’s performance.

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