Fake Love

The running away when people think a person is a ghost has been played out already in Nollywood movies. All the laughs have been exhausted. It’s no longer funny anymore. Stop it!

Hey guys, the movie we are reviewing today is Fake Love from UcheNancyTV on YouTube. You can check her out, she tends to post new material regularly.

Myopic Concaves’ Verdict: 1/5 (DON’T WATCH)

Fake Love is a story about a girl, Nancy, who got lucky marrying a very wealthy man, Mike. The movie focuses on the issues she faces dealing with her money grubbing family who can’t seem to stop asking for handouts.

Did I enjoy the movie?

and I will tell you why.

The Plot

The story wasn’t unique. The writer didn’t even try, not for a second, to make us want to root for Nancy. Sure, the average reasoning of a person with a moral compass would be able to say that her family was wrong.

However, that is not enough. We needed to see Nancy struggle with her decision to either please her family, herself or her husband.

We needed to see Nancy’s family have a bargaining chip over her head, to explain the hold they had on her.

But we didn’t.

All we saw was Nancy being mildly irritated sometimes. To be honest, instead of you to feel sorry for Nancy, your attention shifts to Mike. You start to worry about him and wonder why he keeps enabling these people.

You even start to despise Nancy for having zero respect for how hard Mike had to work to make the money she just doles out to her useless family.

The Characters

The characters were barely distinct from one another. Nancy’s mother, Agnes; her sister, Amaka; and brother, Ikenna are all one person. They spoke and behaved the same way – there was no depth to who they were, which was rather unfortunate because had their characters been well thought out, they could have been made to create badass subplots.

Another awful thing was the writer trying to make Nancy’s drunk and irresponsible father, Okoro, the voice of reason.

REALLY?

That man is under 50 and has no job. He sits at home all day and drinks alcohol but somehow we are supposed to listen to him because he manages to say the truth once in a while?

The ending of the film was a no: complete and utter no. But it is in a way better than the usual forgiveness fest we are forced to watch in most movies.

Acting

If there is one thing this movie did not lack, it would the bad acting. Everybody was terrible but the MVP of the bad acting would have to be the triad of Sonia Uche, Ebony Obasuyi and Jude Iyke.

They were so unbelievable, lacking complexity in the interpretation of their roles. I don’t even think they really understood who their character was (neither did the director).

Acting should be an extension of yourself. Of course you are not playing yourself. But most times when you are given a script, you should always ask yourself: “If I were to be this person, how would I behave?”

Let’s say you were to act the role of a wicked person. Ask yourself how a mean version of yourself would behave and please do not give me that crap of I am not like that.

We as humans are complex beings. We have the propensity to be more than just what we presently are. So search within yourself or study evil people that you know.

Direction

Fake Love was paced terribly. We get it that the girl is poor but too much time was spent on reiterating how in awe she is of her sudden rise to wealth.

Another was how the actors portrayed their characters. You could clearly see that most of them were rookies, but the director didn’t bother to give them pointers to guide them in making their portrayals seem more believable.

How all that terrible acting got past him was truly the stuff of wonders.

Furthermore, Nancy’s conflict was not captivating. It was not as emotionally charged. In fact the entire thing looked like a primary school play.

Score/Music

As with all Nollywood movies, Fake Love had an original soundtrack that is on a loop and neither evokes emotion nor sets the mood. All it did was to give you the premise of the entire movie in a song.

It is worthy to note that the music didn’t get in the way of the conversations, so excellent

Cinematography

The actors were not framed well, there were scenes where the actors heads were being cut off. I am guessing because there wasn’t enough space to go back and shoot the actors well.

After all, it is home video.

Editing

No translations. Igbo was spoken and translations only made an entrance and exit within the span of 10 seconds in the first part.

And yes, they used their longtime favourites “curses”, “incantations” and so on

The editing did seem clean cut for the most part. The flow seemed consistent so well done on that.

Dialogue

The conversations were not believable. They all seemed to be filled with clichés and authoritative language, shouting matches and the usual improv from a designated drunken sage.

Nancy and Mike spent more time answering calls and making out than they did talking. Gift’s first scene was ridden with clichés – she offers to go to the kitchen with Nancy.

Uchenna’s conversations were filled with the usual, “it’s unfair, you are wicked, she is your sister, yadiyadiya”

It was really boring I tell you.

Beneath Her Veil was so bad, we cried

Read all about it

Cast

Chiege Alisigwe as Agnes

Fred Ebere as Okoro

Chuks Omalicha as Mike

Nnebe Chinenye as Nancy

Sonia Uche as Amaka

Ebony Obasuyi as Uchenna

Jude Iyke as Ikenna

Directed by

Matthew C. Ajallys

Written & Produced by

UcheNancy

Screenplay by

Chioma Ezeamaku