By Amadi Chimaobi Kingsley
‘Crossroads’ portrays how unpredictable life can be; amid all the dramas, your dreams can still be achieved.
The movie by Aisha Lawal focuses on Eriola, a university student in the 1990s who gets entangled in a mess with a cultist, Oyekan. She eventually falls in love with Oyekan, picking a cultist over a responsible graduate who loves her.
Eriola, despite being a medical student, still finds the time to engage in theatrical events. As an exciting performer, she puts audiences on the edge of their seats with her dancing and drumming skills. However, Eriola’s father (Bimbo Emmanuel), an insanely principled man and an overbearing father, would take steps to ensure that her distracting life as a performer is set aside.
Eriola’s school is ravaged by violent cultists who kill at a whim, but Eriola is not fazed by their antics and stands up for her friends against them, even slapping the most dreaded of them, Oyekan (Deyemi Okanlanwon), to make this point. (i still find this scene hard to believe).
Their paths cross again; this time, Oyekan is on the run from the authorities, and he seeks refuge in her room. Despite her obvious disdain for him, she inexplicably decides to hide him. This decision backfires as Oyekan is discovered and Eriola is arrested as an accomplice and subsequently rusticated. Her father expectedly disowns her and throws her out of his house. She shacks up with Oyekan, whose guilt makes him feel a sense of responsibility towards her.
Unsurprisingly, due to the shared trauma and proximity, I say this because nothing else can explain it, they develop romantic feelings and become a couple. However, demons from the past won’t let them be. Oyekan’s rival cult leader, Gbenga (Ibrahim Yekini Itele), won’t rest until he exerts revenge for his fallen members. Fela (Lateef Adedimeji), Eriola’s old flame, returns from outside the country and wants his girl back. While all these conflicts should make for an intriguing and heavily layered drama, the poor interpretation of the plot and lazy depictions of the events make it look like a hastily put-together high school drama performance.
Moving on to the Movie Analysis:
Instead of a compelling competition for Eriola’s love, the interactions between the men feel devoid of genuine emotion or action.
Surprisingly, the narrative focused more on parental figures from the 19th century who adhered to rigid disciplinary methods and were emotionally detached and strict in child-rearing. This is portrayed through Eriola, Pipe, her younger sister, and their father.
Certain scenes appear unjustifiable and fail to contribute meaningfully to the plot, such as Oyekan’s encounter with a random woman, which exposes her nudity without adding substance to the narrative. The scene shows the naked breast of a lady while being intimate with Oyekan, which is unnecessary to the plot development. It would have been acceptable if such intimacy had happened between Oyekan and Eriola.
The film lacks depth, resulting in a flat emotional resonance. Both romantic and action sequences suffer from poor performance and editing.
The film needed to deliver a captivating storyline or evoke genuine emotional responses. It neither succeeds as a compelling romance nor an engaging action film, leaving us disconnected from the narrative.
Now on to the Character Analysis:
Aisha Lawal plays the main character, Eriola. Her performance brings out the essence of the 19th-century plot. Eriola’s fate changes when she helps Oyekan.
Deyemi Okanlawon, a fabulous actor, did not give life to the character Oyekan, the leader of a cult group at the university. Okanlawon is a great actor, but in this movie, his acting is not convincing enough, as he is a cultist and a lover.
Adedimeji Lateef portrays Fela, the second guy who, in the movie, should be fighting for Eriola’s love.
The love between Fela and Eriola does not feel natural because they have no emotional connection.
Bimbo Manuel, Eriola’s father, is portrayed as a disciplinarian, a characteristic seen in many parents in the 1990s. He refuses to drive his daughter to school, claiming it is his car and that she should study hard and get hers.
He arrests his staff for eating three eggs that were cracked and going bad from his poultry and calls it stealing. When his daughter gets arrested for being an accomplice to a cultist, he denies and abandons her. He seemed to value his chickens more than his daughters. Knowing those cracked eggs could go bad, he still punished his workers for taking them. We could liken his daughter Eriola to the broken eggs. Why didn’t he forgive her when she was cracked and going bad? As soon as there was a crack, he left his daughter devoured by her actions. He later apologized and asked for her forgiveness after she had graduated.
Crossroads is strong evidence that a star-studded cast cannot save a bad story. Despite having a stellar cast comprising actors like Deyemi Okanlawon, Lateef Adedimeji, Femi Adebayo, Kie Kie, and Yvonne Jegede, the acting performances are abysmal. This is due to poor execution of the plot and weak artistic guidance. If you can overlook the inappropriate age casting, with all the actors looking way older than their roles, it will be hard to ignore the abject lack of chemistry among the actors, especially between the two lead characters, who are supposedly lovers. None of the performances are convincing, as the actor’s resort to melodrama unnecessarily too many times. This is not helped by the poor blocking, which makes them appear painfully stationary in many of the scenes.
While the writing shows off an arsenal of Yoruba proverbs, the proverbs are the only part of the dialogue that is inspiring. The rest of the lines are weak, failing to capture the events or the action of the characters. At some point, it seems like the actors make up their own lines as the film progresses.
Crossroads is a film that promises little and gives little. The weak direction of the film leads to a poorly executed plot, unresolved situations and uninspiring acting— all critical issues that the elaborate 80’s costume and makeup cannot conceal.
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