Lionheart

While the rest of the industry abandons the actors of old, she casts Jemima Osunde right beside Kanayo O. Kanayo. While all the movies in “new nollywood” are not just set in Lagos but in the poshest parts of the island, she sets the film in the dusts of Enugu. While others push for characters with slayed wigs, her character totes a natural hair-do all through the film. While the country abandons its traditional languages, she writes a movie that’s 70% in a local language. And in the film as well, while her uncle bribes his way to the things he wants, she comes up with strategic 3-point plans. The entire “Lionheart” movie is built around juxtapositions and contrasts.

In “Lionheart”, Adanna, the hardworking daughter of Mr. Obiagu – owner of Lionheart transport – finds herself shoved to the side and overlooked for leadership when her father falls ill. After many years of proving her worth, she finds herself now having to work alongside a seemingly regressive uncle in order to pull her father’s company out of looming bankruptcy.

Many have called Lionheart an ode to “old nollywood” and rightly so. With a cast that boasts veterans of yore from Onyeka Onwenu, to Kanayo O. Kanayo and even Zebudaya, it tugs at all of your nostalgia strings to get you through the doors. And just when you are seated it tugs some more with its family-centric storyline that tries to slide in some morale every now and then. Truth be told, Lionheart is simply a Hallmark movie done well. It has all the elements from a seemingly urgent crisis, a family unit, a communal feeling and a clash between old and new thoughts. Except this is OUR hallmark movie.

In Lionheart, Genevieve’s character does a good job of juxtaposing the constraints of being a western minded individual in the progression-resistant culture around her. It’s an interesting play on our emotions especially for the old nollywood audience that has matured over the years. On the one hand, by giving us all of our nollywood legends in one film, they evoke such potent nostalgia. On the other hand, we can relate to the character of Adanna because she is like us – she is from this culture but she is educated in a different time, and she is trying hard to work her way up through these constraints. It’s a constant tug through the movie of the ooohs and aahs of the familiar right alongside the eeeh and bleehs of the same familiars.

It’s difficult to isolate stand out performances here because the story is hardly one that lets any individual actor shine alone. Instead it requires a certain level of skill from every actor for the entire movie to work at all. Hence, at the end of the movie, the truth of the matter is that Genevieve was in character as Genevieve and Osuofia in character as Osuofia but together they create scenes like the dining room scene. Technically that scene had nothing to do with the story and could have been left on the chopping board but we are all glad that it wasn’t. Up until that moment, the movie was still “trying” to create that familial love atmosphere, and this scene solidifies it. Why is the scene so great? Because you cannot write in the comfort between the characters, you cannot direct the cues and the fluidity of the jokes going round the table, and you sure as hell can’t come anywhere near staging the genuine laughter from Pete Edochie as he responds to Osuofia’s jokes.

These are the reasons the movie works. It works because it’s heartfelt. It works because it is “feel-good”. It’s not because it is uber original or overly suspenseful. In all honesty, even after the conflict in the movie has been established, at no point does the audience actually feel that there is any impending doom. You trust that its all going to end well and you keep watching until it eventually does.

Everything in Lionheart – from the actors, the props, the sets, the locations, the shots, the conflicts and even the resolution of the story – ties back to this theme of the war between the old and the new. With Lionheart, Genevieve posits that thinking of it as a fight between both ideologies is a failure in itself. To coexist and unite is the only sure way of advancing – this is true for the characters in the movie and also true for nollywood as a whole.

If not for anything else, watch Lionheart for that heart warming scene where Pete Edochie starts to speak Hausa. Fluently. And after you’re done with that, join me in requesting that the makers of this movie put out a lengthy behind-the-scenes video for all of us to see. We really just want to see what it was like when the legends were sitting among themselves before “action” was called.

Lionheart is available HERE on January 4th, 2019