Lowladee has a sleeper hit with her film “You Me Maybe”

I think I’m putting my IrokoTV subscription to good use. The streaming platform’s catalogue of movies and TV shows seems infinite, and it can be a little frustrating deciding on what to watch. When I came across You Me Maybe, though, I felt more inclined to give it a try because of its run time: 59 minutes, and on the dot. Well, if you ignore the closing credits. When I also learned that You Me Maybe is a romantic drama directed by Dolapo Adeleke, or popularly known as Lowladee within the film and TV circuit, I found myself having a healthy level of expectation.

Though young, Lowladee has always struck me as a burgeoning Shonda Rhimes, a creative hitmaker relentlessly leaving her signature aesthetic on cable TV and film. As Rhymes is to effortlessly entertaining procedural dramas, so is Lowladee to the genre of romantic comedy. With her first hit show This Is It, and the more recent Entangled, Lowladee is reliable for delivering enjoyable, sublime television.

Released late in 2017, You Me Maybe doesn’t waste time in diving into its story. In the hospital with her supportive parents, Samantha (Ade Laoye) has just undergone surgery to remove fibroids. The doctor tells the family that Samantha’s left ovary was compromised in the operation, leaving her with a slim chance to reproduce. The news is shocking and devastating, moreso because Samantha is the only child of her parents.

As her mother (Tina Mba) tries to tenderly suggest marriage in order for her daughter to circumvent her current medical crisis, Samantha falls back on the cushion of work. She does so deliberately, as a kind of coping mechanism. Her catering business, though moving but largely obscure, is still in the rudimentary phase of website creation, logistics, and planning. She remains optimistic, bright, and diminishes her condition with a positive outlook. In her delivery of lunch to a company, which will determine if she will become the company’s permanent supplier, Samantha sits in the office of the head consultant Jide (Ademola Adedoyin), who acts like a jerk at first by rudely ignoring her when he answers a call through his wireless headset.

What is truly magical about You Me Maybe, and a testament to Lowladee’s brilliant, auteurial pedigree, is how Samantha and Jide blend themselves into a harmonious chemistry. Jide is cute, as is Samantha, and You Me Maybe is a cute, tender, hour-long love story that takes a basic script and turns it into something special. I can’t say at which precise moment Samantha and Jide knew they wanted to be with each other, but the process involves ditching an overpriced restaurant together while on a date and settling for eating cheap shawarma in Jide’s car. They formulate “I want,” a sweetly polite request they exchange between each other a few times. And Jide helps in Samantha’s kitchen. Isn’t that cute?

But Samantha feels that she shouldn’t tell Jide about her medical condition. And this is where You Me Maybe takes on its greatest, tempestuous conflict. The film, ever at a running pace, still doesn’t feel too propulsive. I like that Jide isn’t physically hunky as you’d expect, and that Samantha (spoiler alert), opts for adoption at the end. You Me Maybe is one of the hidden gems on IrokoTV, and I’m glad I was able to find it.

 

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