“Aiye dey do you”.

This is a popular Nigerian street maxim that implies that you are a victim of circumstance, literally. Though also used to underpin that the source of one’s failures and/or retrogression is most likely because some evil individual or individuals’ is/are after you with voodoo or enchantment and even maybe, curses.

The saying has become a common alibi for most dreamers who give up or give in to spiritual gymnastics, rather than take on life’s brutal resistance against breaking through in a highly competitive world.

“This Lady Called Life” is a brilliant playout of the above-described reality. The name of the movie itself is a poetic play of words. On one hand, it implies a howl against life’s eventualities (like in ‘life happened’) and on the other, it introduces the lead role, Aiye, who’s an exhausted receptor of the harsh exigent bartering of Aiye (life)!

This 2020 romantic drama that stars Abisola Aiyeola as Aiye starts off painting the struggles of a single mother attempting to trade her misfortune for a big dream of becoming one of Nigeria’s most famous Sous-chefs. The biggest platform for showcasing her cookery talent lines before her but the struggles of juggling babysitting and delivering home-made food to her customers was going to stop her from getting in on time, to write a popular entrance exam for amateur chefs. Fully prepared and well-studied, she makes it in just in time for the exam only for her phone to ring and Jemima Osunde (Toke in the movie) gets on the line with the news that their mother (Legendary Tina Mba) has just been rushed to the hospital.

Aiye ditches her exams and rushes off to the hospital to discover it is not an emergency worth throwing away her life’s dream for. She returns to her lowly life saddened, after giving off the first sign of the dysfunctionality in her relationship with her mother.

Aiye’s father, played by Wale Ojo, comes visiting quite early the next day and theatrically gets her to agree to come home after several years of banishment, enforced by her mother, who couldn’t forgive her for getting pregnant while at school. She’s needed to take care of her since her father, an out-of-town university lecturer, and her sister, a pregnant new bride are not available to do so. She takes along her son, who has prior, had no relationship with his grandmother. The corrosive atmosphere of Aiyetide’s formative years soon becomes a new reality, as the movie goes on to show the damages of verbal abuse, compassionless parenting and the misery of a child that is never heard.

Aiye would soon find love in a customer and photographer, who opens the last door to the stage where her life’s dream stares her in the face. She’s become glossophobic because of her life’s experiences, and this hunts her even in her dreams. Again, ‘life happens’ in this her rare shot at a better life and in a flux of love, mistrust and hatred from her own mother, Aiye gives her best towards having a happy ending.

Kayode Kassum, the Yabatech and Wale Adenuga Productions-trained young filmmaker once again brought his expertise to bear in this work, just like he’s done with the highly successful movie Sugar Rush and other brilliant works. The Bisola that we know is extremely playful, one could imagine the amount of work it would have taken to get her into the character of a reserved and very serious Aiye – they must have shot and reshot some scenes to pin her to the script. The was definitely immense hard work to have achieved the excellent delivery that is seen in all major characters.

The plot of “This Lady Called Life” is simple, almost like a stage play, but the execution clearly took meticulous care. Aiye’s one-room apartment and her parents’ house were shot in a way that the entire set could be collapsed into one big stage. There’s nothing fussy or overdone in the film’s look, nothing to distract. Human interaction is the main event here. Some interactions are intense, most others ordinary, but well lined with the striking realities of the society.

The highlight of the movie would be the scene Aiye walks into her mother flogging her son with a hanger, just after getting through the first audition in the ‘Red Dish Amateur Chef’ contest (by the way, Red Dish is a real-life leader in culinary arts training in Nigeria). Aiye comes out of her silence and confronted her mean mother for the very first time:

“You are a wicked mother…Tola raped me, I came to tell you, I begged you but you never listened”.

That scene, that phrase – “you never listened” sort of climaxed the train of lessons on the ill side of stern parenting that this movie sort to underpin. African parents expecting sainthood from their children and trashing them down anything they do not live to their religious/peer-pressure-coloured expectations, end up turning their wards to the cold hands of life and in most cases worst influences. Taking away vital support systems of love, empathy and attention, because a child wouldn’t fit into a parent’s mold is nothing short of callous. This fact was well delivered in this film.

It is very nice to see a film deal with this salient parenting issues with excellent nuances, particularly at a time we are dealing with major cultural differences between parents of varying generations. Also commendable is the film’s showcase of non-traditional and not-so-popular career paths of culinary arts and photography as an image of a worthy life pursuit by the main characters.

The Cast
Bisola Aiyeola as Aiye
Efa Iwara as Obinna
Jemima Osunde as Toke
Tina Mba as mummy
Wale Ojo as daddy
Lota Chukwu as Omo
The Crew
Director: Kayode Kasum
Producer: Abisola Yussuf and Kayode Kasum
Screenplay: Toluwani Obayan

The “it” Factor? There is nothing novel about this work.

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• Theme
• Screenwriting
• Visual Design
• Cinematography
• Editing
• Sound and Music
• Acting
• Directing