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The epigraph at the pilot episode of Princess On A Hill poses a self-examination question on how far one can go in achieving success. What is the opportunity cost of success, especially in the cutthroat world of high-stakes business where fortunes are forged and reputations are razed with each passing moment? Co-directed by Tolu Ajayi and Abiola Sobo, the series follows Zara Osara (Onyinye Odokoro), a driven and ambitious young woman as she navigates the treacherous landscape of the corporate world within the towers of a prestigious business.
With her meteoric rise to success, Zara struggles to delicately balance her family dynamics, friendships, and romantic relationships, all while confronting the darker aspects of her own ambition. Her employment at the Lawson Group is a mix of serendipity and strategic maneuvering. One day, she’s toiling away as an overworked call center agent, suffocated by a demanding boss; the next, she’s catapulted into the world of a big corporation, where she’s ensconced as an executive assistant, complete with the luxury of a personal driver.
At the heart of the series is Zara’s toxic professional dynamic with Moyosore Lawson (Bimbo Manuel), the CEO of The Lawson Group, a man with the witless cruelty of a psychopath. The power imbalance between them is so palpable, and like the narcissistic bully Moyosore is, he leverages that. As his ulterior plans for Zara begin to unfold, she becomes increasingly ensnared in Moyosore’s scheming, and her relationships with her family and close friend, Menny (Andrew Bunting), begin to fray. The writers of this show (Bibi Ukpo and Sonia Nwosu) skillfully resist the temptation of romanticizing her ambition by thoughtfully illuminating the blurred lines between noble intentions and ruthless drive. One can argue that Zara has the best of intentions to help her boss take revenge on his enemies who orchestrated his helicopter crash, but it’s how these writers are also determined to not just make her the victim of a moral dilemma but show her clear-eyed complicity in making others victims in her own story.
The thematic approach in Princess On A Hill bears a quiet semblance to Ajayi’s debut feature, Over the Bridge, in its scathing critique of the destructive underpinnings of corporate culture. In this 10-episode Showmax series, we see his heroine grow from a struggling intern with an awful fashion sense into this awful person with good business acumen. Much of this series’ conflicts comes from Zara’s shady and dire interactions with Moyosore. Within the first two episodes, you feel like you’re in the middle of a conspiracy or corporate espionage before it starts to thin itself out by glossing excessively over Moyosore’s schemings. The thing is, no one else is actively plotting against Moyosore, at least none that we are shown or told. Either he suffers from persecution complex or he’s a mastermind deliberately orchestrating people’s downfall for his own pleasure. This leaves the audience questioning what’s real and what’s just a clever ruse.
Princess On A Hill masquerades as a corporate drama, but beside its middling office politics, it takes the exploration of human relationships of its characters seriously even more than itself. Whether it’s the tender dynamic between a concerned mother and her daughter, the uneasy alliances between rival coworkers, or the unspoken tensions between best friends harboring secret attractions. The emotional linchpin of this show and its groundedness rest on these relationships. While the results are sometimes satisfying to watch, at other times, the flat, monotonous dialogues here and there distill the potentials of these relationships that it hardly leaves any lasting impression. Speaking of impression, this is the closest I’ve come to appreciating Efa Iwara on screen. He shines as Ozichukwu Obiora by conveying the character’s righteous anger towards his mother, Mrs. Obiora, and his personal demons with impressive restraint.
Ireti Doyle (as Mrs. Obiora) delivers an excellent performance as an icy matriarch and formidable boardroom executive. Her character’s emotional disconnect with her son is efficiently portrayed, and despite the lack of warmth between them, it’s clear that she’s also looking out for him with genuine maternal love. One of Moyosore’s schemings gets her humiliated out of the company, and thanks to him also, the fraught relationship between mother and son stretches to a breaking point when Ozi stumbles upon disturbing secrets about his father’s death.
The series offers no readily likeable major characters. Some of them are flawed and complicated, but are given space to reveal their vulnerabilities before we begin to care for them. Onyinye Odokoro (Slum King) is particularly charming as the show’s heroine even if you hate her for her reckless ambition and gut-wrenching decisions. She compensates for Andrew Bunting’s (Water and Garri) lukewarm performance with committed intensity when they share the screen together. I still can’t fathom Bunting’s purpose in the show other than being Zara’s bestie who she runs to for chitchat, where there could have been more layers to his character.
Unlike other Showmax shows like Wura, Agu, Flawsome with clear overarching themes, Princess on A Hill is a series that defies straightforward categorization. It lacks traditional family drama tropes or the buzz of urgency omnipresent in corporate thrillers, but instead opting for a soft workplace noir. While it may not always succeed in its ambitions, the series offers an important commentary on the often intoxicating power of success and unchecked ambition. As Zara claws through the steep slope of the corporate business, she must examine the true cost of her success like that quote in the opening suggests. Will she emerge unscathed, or will she become just another casualty of the corporate machine?
Princess On A Hill is currently streaming on Showmax.
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Side Musings
- Zara’s brother, Lotanna and his group of “street activists” friends are not serious. Maybe they should hit the gym first.
- What was the whole point of that Ozichukwu’s reveal? Nollywood filmmakers and inconsequential plot twists are 5 & 6.
- My mum is co-asking when Menny will be serious and ask Zara out.
- How is Zara’s family house still up for foreclosure when we heard the banker say that their debts had been paid in full? And I still roll my eyes thinking if there’s still another house they took out a mortgage on other than that sad-looking house we get shown.
- Showing us Denloye (Femi Jacobs) at the near end of the series, makes me question if there was really a helicopter crash at all or is this just some lousy plot device that the writers invented earlier. For instance, look at Moyosore with barely any burn injury or visible scare.
- There’s a possibility of season 2 coming soon, unless Showmax will release a long Twitter post to resolve all these questions complete with pictures of Zara’s wedding to Menny.
