The Eve is a 2018 Tosin Igho movie that follows a groom-to-be as he falls for a stranger two days to his wedding. The state of the nation is bleak and the only way we can keep our sanity is by distracting ourselves. Also, the romantic dramedy is currently trending at number 1 on Netflix Naija, so I thought, “what the heck”. Let’s check it out.
Plot
Funsho is a sexually repressed groom-to-be who is set to marry his overbearing long-time girlfriend Yewande. But in the few days leading up to the wedding, Funsho goes on a trip with his guys and ends up falling for Alero, a beautiful stranger who shares his interests.
Funsho hides his upcoming wedding to pursue the romance, but drama ensues when all the secrets come bubbling to the surface.
Cast
Adeolu Adefarasin plays Funsho, the main character. Beverly Naya plays the fiancé Yewande. Mawuli Gavor, Efe Iwara, Meg Otanwa, Kunle Remi, Toni Tones, and John Okafor also star in this movie.
SPOILER ALERT Don’t say I didn’t warn you
Review
I’m just going to come out and say that The Eve was roughly written and not thought through properly. I say this because most of the time, the characters just blurt out very important exposition. They don’t ease into it. The characters just spill information unprovoked.
For example, when Tosan (Mawuli Gavor) blurts out to Ebere (Efe Iwara) that he had sex with Yewande while she and Funsho were together. There was no reason why he needed to state that. But it is obvious that the writers could not make the effort to figure out how this scandalous information would get out.
Another unprovoked exposition was when Audu (Kunle Remi) revealed that he was gay to Funsho. It would have been a lot more wholesome if Funsho told him he already knew before he said it. That way, the feeling of love, brotherhood, and acceptance would have been amped up. A slight change, but nuance is everything.
I also did not like Beverly Naya’s character very much. It is as though she is being typecast into the role of the unrelatable snobby or controlling girl all the time. In addition to that, in rom-coms, they always paint the girlfriend or fiancé in a bad light to justify the romantic lead cheating on or leaving her for someone else. It is possible for someone to be a good person but still incompatible with the romantic lead.
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I have a lot of problems with the writing in The Eve because things don’t gradually build up. The conversations, the conflicts, the chemistry, nothing builds up. Everything starts and ends abruptly and this makes for an impassioned watching experience.
The supposed attraction between Funsho and Alero seems made up because I can’t see it at all. There is no tension, no longing, just forced conversation. And we should just take their word for it that tepid Funsho and boring Alero are in fact feeling each other.
The Eve also had terrible humour; like all the jokes about celibacy and monogamy, the horny pastor, Tosan’s inability to last in bed, they were all unrefined. Then they went on to miss comedic opportunities with the way Funsho talked about his celibacy. I don’t even want to get into Uncle Festus’ (John Okafor) assault of Aunty Beatrice (Ronke Oshodi). They even managed to do cheap slapstick comedy wrong.
So I endured this movie waiting for kasala to burst, the climax, when Funsho finds out that Yewande and Tosan slept together. However, like every scene, it was abrupt and poor. The cinematography did nothing to usher us into this important plot point. The music does not heighten to indicate that something dramatic is about to happen. No. It just happens.
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Somehow, I’m more disappointed in Alero’s badly styled hair than I am by anything else in The Eve. 2018 is not that long ago and they should have known better. It is also shitty of Ebere to assume he can call dibs on a woman like she’s the last slice of pizza. Misogynistic and ridiculous.
Surprisingly enough, I did not hate the singing, although it was a bit cringeworthy at the beginning.
There’s also something to be said about the fact that Funsho could remain friends with Tosan but couldn’t make it work with Yewande.
In fact, I find it weird that in all of Funsho’s grievances with Yewande, he never mentioned that she was controlling and mean. I don’t even think he should have remained friends with any of those guys after they had made him so afraid for his life that he peed on himself. But Funsho himself is also quite the fickle little hypocrite so maybe he deserves his shitty friends.
My final note is that the only way writing can be good is if the filmmakers reread and rewrite severally to smooth out rough edges. They so clearly did not do that here.