Religions and cultures agree: desperation has a way of becoming spiritual. The woman who cannot bear a child, the man whose mind is poisoned by money; these are not just personal tragedies in Nigerian storytelling, they are the raw materials of haunting spirits in our films. Love and New Notes understands this instinctively but not philosophically, stumbling through a double-barreled story that misfires on both fronts.
Directed by Kayode Kasum (a frequent collaborator with actor and producer Timini), the film—part horror, part romance, part drama, part heist, part comedy—follows Boma and Chisom in 1984 Nigeria navigating their love and financial struggles amidst a policy change to the Naira notes, which leads them into a situation haunted by a forgotten past.
(Click to Follow the What Kept Me Up channel on WhatsApp)
Love and New Notes presents itself in its time period very quickly but also very carelessly. Its vision of Nigeria’s past is informed by melding as many vintage elements as possible with no concern for accuracy and even great production value: there is a scene where one of the plate numbers of a car is visibly a piece of printed paper tacked onto the car. This lack of care seeps into the dialogue of the film which is only vintage in name. Characters lack the polished restraint you expect from spoken English in Nigeria during that period; you could place the characters in a present-day film and their conversations would fit even better. The hinges that hold the story to this past are rusty: the Naira note policy change is convenient only for Chisom’s entry into the world of Wura Gbadamosi (the unsettling old woman played by Eniola Badmus) when she’s hired to count a bunch of old notes before the deadline to change them at the bank.
The other side of the film that exists in her world takes attention and time away from Boma and Chisom, the main couple we’re supposed to be invested in. Their romance never settles and Timini Egbuson as Boma, a conman desperate for a big break, tries to deploy his usual lover boy acting tactics: an unwavering stare, slightly open lips and a voice an octave or two lower than usual to no real success often because the subject of his affection, Chisom (played by Sophie Alakija), is singular in portrayal—the best we know is that she’s an accountant.
When we are taken to Wura’s home, the film lends the home an air of sinister mystery; characters lurk in the dark, wooden sculptures decorate the home and a man’s crooked leg and poorly done glass eye invite her into the home. Over the course of this part of the film we get to know Wura’s back story with her husband Gbolahan (played with gusto by Odunlade Adekola) and how barrenness has defined her life. She is, in other words, a recognisable figure: the wicked woman of Nollywood, a staple the industry has returned to across generations. Think of Patience Ozokwor‘s early roles—the scheming mother-in-law, the desperate, embittered woman whose hunger for something she cannot have has curdled into cruelty. These women are almost always driven by a specific want: a child, money, protection, survival. The trope rarely asks what made them this way; it is content to simply present the wickedness as fact.
Wura could have been a reckoning with that tradition. Her barrenness is not incidental, it is the engine of everything the film does with her, and there is a genuinely interesting question buried underneath it: when do the gendered social pressures placed on a woman begin to distort her personhood entirely? Can she be both victim and perpetrator? But because the film arrives at this question accidentally, it has no idea what to do with it. It presents her desperation as spiritual spectacle rather than social consequence, and the result is that Wura joins a long line of wicked women in Nigerian cinema without the film ever realising it had a chance to interrogate that line.
That the film cannot interrogate what it accidentally uncovers is perhaps unsurprising given the hand guiding it. Kasum’s direction is the go-to for an assured, non-subversive release these days. He tackles the visual narrative as simply as possible—no frills or identifying flair, titling the camera sideways is the best you’ll get. Where he falters is the singular sex scene between Boma and Chisom. Already awkwardly set up, he places the camera solely on Chisom’s backside for a good amount of time before stumbling through the rest of the scene. The main couple’s already suffering chemistry is dealt another deathly blow with this scene.
For many Nigerian films to conclude, exposition and flashbacks must play a lazy role; Love and New Notes offers nothing different. It follows the recent emergence of a lazy spirituality to explain the events of a film and give it a climax. There is no in-world coherence to these forces and no narrative throughline, it’s a vestige of old Nollywood without the commitment it used to have. It cannot settle on what it thinks about the Nollywood wicked woman, if there is a spiritual decay tied to a woman’s desperation and if she can be both victim and perpetrator. Instead, Love and New Notes deploys haunting ghosts, bright-eyed wooden sculptures and an obvious twist to set fire to its story and transform a money-obsessed love interest, and you know they all live happily ever after.
Produced by Filmtrybe and FilmOne Studios, Love and New Notes premiered in cinemas on February 13.
Become a patron: To support our in-depth and critical coverage—become a Patron today!
Join the conversation: Share your thoughts in the comments section or on our social media accounts.
Side Musings
- Was Timini wearing a wig in this? The hair kept on distracting me.
- The fits they wore to go and steal the money were so unserious. Why was Tade wearing a whole suit?
- Tade was the funniest part of the film but you could tell they leaned too much on him for that.
