Mildred Okwo's Nigerian romcom On Different Grounds bills itself as “the first Nollywood-Bollywood collaboration,” a stretch given that its Indian representation comes from two fringe players, Nimesh Diliprai Desai and Vineet Raina, on a sprawling wedding-invite list. Yet the two industries do share common ground: big-hearted family values and a penchant for grand gestural emotions that, in Okwo's somewhat heavy-footed film, trample on promising concepts and narrative plausibility.
A Cupid's conspiracy with a family twist
Silk-tressed bachelorette Aurora (Abena Akuaba) is browbeaten by her businessman dad Eyimofe (Bob-Manuel Udokwu) into marrying snoozefest suitor Tobore (Ifeanyi Kalu). She is hardly enthused when he parrots his criteria for “a collaboration with an individual or brand”: “value check, common interest, due diligence and critical analysis.” But she agrees to set a date on one condition: that Eyimofe must invite her mother, Isioma (Jennifer Eliogu), booted out years back for wanting to pursue her career, to the big day.
Aurora's plan to rekindle romance in her uptight executive dad is a sly, fun starting point, made more urgent when success becomes critical to the future of her secret childhood crush on Rajesh (Raina), a pristine-bouffanted dreamboat. But this Cupid's conspiracy, which might have made a fine 1940s screwball, nosedives in Okwo's hands, as she sandwiches agonisingly leaden farce (such as the cough Aurora suddenly develops in Rajesh's presence) between slabs of family melodrama.
Chemistry falls flat but cast compensates
Akuaba acts with a detached air, not mustering much chemistry with Rajesh, or anti-chemistry with Tobore, to suggest a woman vacillating on an emotional hotplate. Luckily, there is compensating zip elsewhere in the cast, especially Nkem Owoh and Ebele Okaro's Igbo uncle and aunt with their strong greetings game, and fibrous social satire in the interactions between the wedding party's various Igbo, Itsekiri and Yoruba affiliations.
Little of it is integrated into the romantic chicanery, but the rowdy nuptial energy just about keeps the show on the road. On Different Grounds is in UK cinemas from 28 August.
