The Two Aishas stars leading Kannywood actresses Rahama Sadau and Maryam Booth as best friends at loggerheads. The 2023 film is a family and political drama about the strains ambition can place on cordial relationships. While it sets out to highlight the place of friendship in real-life ambitions, the execution is predictable, thus diminishing the emotional sting that predicates the story.

Childhood friends, both named Aisha, now married to politicians, have found themselves at loggerheads because of their husbands. Jamal Jibril (Paul Utomi) is set to receive the deputy governor ticket, and due to some tax discrepancies, the ticket is taken from him and given to Ibrahim Yusuf (Akeem Ogara). Jamal suspects Ibrahim told on him, but Ibrahim is insistent he didn’t. The tension weighs on the relationship of their wives. A third friend, Halimah (Shushu Abubakar), brings the emotional core to the story, resolving their conflict. 

Directed by Iyke Okechukwu, The Two Aishas is meant to be a warm experience about family, friendship, and important relationships. It is not a work that needs to be deeply thought about. Perhaps it doesn’t want that either. But it presents thought-provoking problems it doesn’t properly attend to.

There is a staleness to the plot. An overbearing familiarity that dissuades the viewer from properly engaging the film. For example, it is obvious from the first scene with the three friends the fate that will eventually befall Halimah. And when the conflict emerged, it was clear Halimah would be the tiebreaker. There are no original plots, but the perspective of a story’s world personalises its plot. It doesn’t feel like The Two Aishas has a commanding narrative personality. There is no stamp of the world on the plot, not enough to make the plot original. 

Thusly we trudge through narrative debris. The actors are neither exceptional nor terrible, even though the dialogues aren’t inventive. Although the child actors aren’t good, they applied themselves to the role. And the overt fixation on religion had little to no real bearing on the plot. It just is, as with everything else: cinematography, editing; nothing except sound jumps out from the lot. And the sound is noticeable because it is, for some reason, oriental. 

The Two Aishas is a simple didactic film, almost overbearing with its morals. A bit misguided too, because Jibril, for all his religiousness, doesn’t seem contrite about his tax fraud. And it isn’t a real problem with a film that intentional with religion. Still, it is not a bad film. It is only something to put on in the background while getting work done.

The Two Aishas premiered in cinemas on April 24, 2023. It debuted on Prime Video in March 2024.

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Side Musings

• The filmmakers had young beggars in select roles, and it is an excellent initiative. 
• Why is the film oriental-themed? From the font to the sound. The story had no need for that. 
• It feels, a bit, like the directing isn’t thorough enough.