2>1 is a short film about infidelity and the extreme measures marital spouses can take to exact revenge. Adapted by Simi Hassan from Stefan Adamsson’s “The Offer”, and directed by Michael Owoyemi, the film leans into a sparse plot with a twist. The elements of execution too are sparse. This was an indie effort trying its best.
Fola (Stella Ekwueme) has come to Olu (Simi Hassan), with whom she has an intimate but unspecified past. She is reporting her husband, Henry’s (Tiwa Adefolju) infidelity with her sister to him. She wants Olu to assassinate both of them. In a twist, Henry had also hired Olu to murder Fola and his brother.
2>1 is uniform narratively and stylistically. The film happens in a bare environment under the veneer of black and white. When filmmakers employ black and white, it is usually to draw focus on the performance. In 2>1, Stella Ekwueme delivers a decent performance veering close to melodrama until we realise that it’s the ploy of a manipulative woman. Her co-star, Simi Hassan, does his best to reflect the opposite, a calm, collected performance.
The film and the story, as it is, work functionally as a collected unit, but it feels like it needs room to explore itself. The most important bits of the story are implied and off-screen, and some of these would have informed a more complex narrative and performance from the work and the actors. But what we have here suffices as what it is.
Share your thoughts in the comments section or on our social media accounts.
Keep track of upcoming films and TV shows on your Google calendar.
