by Wilfred Okiche

‘My life my damage’ is the second part of Uche Jombo’s trilogy of socially conscious movies that started with 2011’s ‘Damage’ and is expected to top out with ‘My country their damage’ sometime in the nearest future.

Maybe third time will be the charm for this troubled series as the first film was a terribly messy clutter. ‘My life’ also directed by Moses Inwang attempts to scale the incrediby low barrier set by it’s predecessor but ultimately stumbles and crashes mid air. There is almost no point to any of it.

For the role of a medical student abroad who gets involved with the wrong crowd and is stripped of her dignity and moral compass as she descends into the labyrinth of destruction, Tonto Dikeh is a smug fit as she has managed- with her public persona and the roles she’s played- to embody a bad girl image that aligns with her character. Her casting is almost a no-brainer and she vamps up the screen playing an amplified extension of her public image.

The problem arises when she opens her mouth to speak and this happens almost immediately. Adopting a strange and unnecessary accent, she growls annoyingly as she narrates the drama in first person and tests the nerves of her audience with the sound of her voice. Her acting is more tolerable but not by much as she plays an unsympathetic character that has been done to death by better performers.

It is not all her fault though as she is done in ab initio by the screenplay (credited to Ms Jombo) which is so lazy and one-dimensional, serious actors would have turned it down at first read. From the first scene one can see where everything is heading and it is not a pretty sight. At every turn, someone is nagging; Ms Dikeh’s best friends are shouting, her brother is calling long distance shouting, she comes home and there is Biola Segun Williams shouting. Really is there nothing more to all of this?

There isn’t.

Only one scene where Ms Dikeh lies topless and face down as she gets a tattoo under probably unhygienic conditions comes even close to being visually exciting.  The director’s bizarre up close shots where he places the camera directly above his actors’ faces and has them talking funny fails brilliantly and everything just spells tacky and high school movie project depressing.

Thankfully the torture does not go on for too long and the short running time is about the best thing going on since Ms Dikeh’s opening monologue. The film ends as abruptly as one would expect with Dikeh’s character moaning resignedly, ‘’It’s my life…my damage.’’

No missy, the only damage being done here is on the senses of the hapless audience paying good money to see this dreck.

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Wilfred Okiche  tweets from @drwill20

 
Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.