When my attention was drawn to the trailer for ROK TV’s new movie Boundaries, it occured to me that I had been excluding a whole world of Nollywood movies and I had to correct that immediately.
Boundaries premiered on ROK TV, channel 168 on DStv last night and I watched it. And while there are some obvious complaints I have about this movie, there are also the shining moments.
Let’s get into it…
Plot
The story follows a young couple and the husband’s mother, who is intimidated by the financial independence of her daughter-in-law. The mother-in-law has archaic views of the world and strongly believes that the wife should remain at home; submitting and catering to her husband’s every need.
The wife, on the other hand, has a clothing store to which she is very dedicated. The MIL wants her to close the store and focus on cooking and cleaning and torments the wife to make her give in.
Cast
The cast consists of just four characters yet it was hard to remember anyone’s names. Chioma Nwosu is the mother-in-law, Sandra Okunzuwa plays the wife, Jimmy Odukoya, the husband, and the wife’s friend is Chy Nwakanma.
Review
It was pretty admirable for ROK Studios to want to tackle the subject of gender roles in their film to educate people. There was a lot of effort put into keeping it basic and accessible so everyone could understand the message they were passing across.
However, in trying to get this message to as wide an audience as possible, Boundaries oversimplifies the concept of equality in marriage. The problem of inequality in domestic partnerships is a really big issue; with many women having to give up their dreams and their livelihoods for the sake of their marriage.
There is a cruel system that demands for women to make the bulk of the sacrifices for the sake of a marriage and family that take and take from them until there is nothing left.
Reducing this age-old insidious system to Philomena the troublesome mother-in-law is failing to grasp the gravity of the situation.
Also portraying the wife as this unheard, long-suffering, weak-willed woman was very infuriating; but I think this was intentional. Frustrating the main character is a surefire way to get the audience to stay watching and projecting how they would react in this situation.
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The mother-in-law was provocative in a way that indicated more issues than gender roles. She went too far with the slap and the insults and all of the abuse was played for laughs.
While there were high points in the humour, like the awkward sex education that the couple received from the mother-in-law; there were very low points, like the manipulation and the fact that the husband did not believe his wife at all. In fact, he never listened to anything she said until his sister confirmed them.
There were so many issues that the movie glossed over with the sudden turn-around of the mother-in-law. The resolution was not satisfactory given the many frustrations of the main character.
Also, for a movie as simple as this, with not so complex characters, the run-time was quite long and the pacing was very slow.
That said, I think this movie is worth at least one watch and is a good way to ease feminism into the mind of a simple person.
