Being Mrs. Elliot

My verdict: 2.5 out of 5

2014 | Romance | 1hr 48mins | Watch here

If you’ve watched Mrs. Winterborne, then this movie is going to feel a lot like it.

This is a story about two women whose lives were changed forever by a single accident.
The first was Lara (Omoni Oboli). An affluent but snobbish Lagos wife, who was not just married to her husband but to her superficial friends as well. She was quite emotionally numb and didn’t trust her husband.
The second being Fisayo (Uru Eke / Omoni Oboli ). An Asaba single girl who just got proposed to by her fiance. She seemed level headed.

So how do these two meet. Lara trails her husband to Asaba on the urging of her nosy and snobbish friends. She walks into him being given a massage by his hot-in-the-ass secretary (Sylvia Oluchy) and misinterprets it for something more. She storms out of the hotel to the airport to board a flight back to Lagos.

Fisayo on the other hand, walks into her fiance being murdered by some politician’s hitman. This puts her life in danger, hence her desperation to run away. She meets up with Lara at the airport and they both board a taxi to Lagos (despite not knowing each other). From then on, one thing leads to another and they are both involved in an accident.

As this accident occurs. This movie moves into the futuristic realm. You see, Fisayo’s (Uru Eke) face was so badly burnt that, the only way she was recognised (however, wrongly), was by the wedding ring Lara gave to her to wear just before the accident. So William (Lara’s husband) thought Fisayo was Lara and thereby gave the plastic surgeon a picture of Lara’s face to help with the reconstructive surgery.  So basically, Uru Eke transformed into Omoni Oboli.

I know, it sounds ridiculous. As in, Nigeria that is yet to solve its power failure has doctors who are carrying out a full facial reconstructive surgery from one face to another… and with “scarless” results. Oh well.

So let’s believe that Nigeria could actually do this, at least Fisayo was supposed to have been scarred right?

Okay let’s ignore that and say, this was plausible (without the scars), what about the voice? A person’s voice cannot automatically change just like that or were we supposed to imagine that Omoni had Uru’s voice and accent?

This voice thing was my biggest problem with the movie. It was just a sheer display of laziness on the production crew’s part. I mean, how hard can it be to have Uru’s voice recorded and then synced with Omoni’s mouth? That was just terrible.

The positives with this movie were:
1. The production. I mean, lights, camera, sound… were on point.
2.  Lepacious Bose.  She was funny as hell.  She made me laugh in every one of her scenes.
3. The romantic element of the story. It was really romantic- in the end but it wasn’t really shown. That is we knew they were in love but we didn’t really get to see it grow.

All in all, I say it was a good movie. If you like fancy productions, this is it for you but if you are more of a storyline person, then I’ll advise you to skip this.

Cast
Omoni Oboli as Lara and Fisayo (after the accident)
Majid Michel as William ‘Bill’ Elliot
Uru Eke as Fisayo (before the accident)
Ayo Makun as Ishawuru

Director
Omoni Oboli