By Mava John Joshua
Something Like Gold has nothing like gold in it.
Nollywood romance/comedy movies tend to stick to a tried-and-over used formula: a mix of exaggerated comedic drama, a dose of love wantintin, and a predictable climax. While “Something Like Gold” doesn’t stray from this pattern, one finds Sandra Okunzuwa’s portrayal of the obnoxious heiress who falls from grace quite unenjoyable, she was screaming too loud in the first half of the movie that convinced the viewer that enough research wasn’t done about rich heiresses.
From the trailer for ‘Something Like Gold’ shows a good glimpse of what the plot is like: a conceited character who thinks the world revolves around them goes through a humbling experience that prompts the character to introspect, make drastic decisions, and (usually) leave their old life behind. Which reminds one of ‘MIMI 2021’, a movie written by Samuel Olatunji. While this seems to be the overriding theme of Something Like Gold, it lacks a central narrative to hold the different aspects of the plot together as it flutters from one detail to the next.
Something Like Gold is confused between being a family drama or a romcom, forcefully infusing elements of both. The two main narratives fail to be tied together, with one being totally ditched when the other is being addressed.
Speaking of exaggerated comedy, there was something about the scene with Mercy Johnson and Broda Shaggi that made the viewer cringe a bit. At this point, we can crown Broda shaggi the ‘Nollywood tout’. It started off well but eventually felt like an extended skit. Their show of throwing hands was laughable when it comes to slapstick comedy, especially in Nigerian romantic comedies, one believes that a less-is-more approach tends to be more effective.
What is most striking is that there’s no point in the film that can be properly pointed out as the climax; the film progresses monotonously as several moments that could have served as the rising action are downplayed in its execution: Tamara learns information that shakes the foundation of her existence; she comes to terms, but we don’t see her undergo the emotional journey that would help process it. She just accepted what Aunty Mayowa told her and started calling her ‘Mamey’…flashback scenes involving Tamara’s father and the maid lacked depth. It seemed incomplete and stood out like a sore thumb in the storyline and at the end, this detail looks so inconsequential that one wonders why it was added in the first place. Then one wonders how Tamara’s father knew the maid’s whereabouts and did nothing to help her out with her accommodations and all, how come they left her to rot in the ghetto?
Too many questions left unanswered in that plot.
A film that begins with so much promises is quickly marred by a plot that dithers in its progression as if unsure of how to deliver the comedy/drama it intended to. Several scenes take too much time, and unnecessary actions that have no correlation to the plot happen out of nowhere.
Also, the dialogue is occasionally too banal and unable to capture the emotional depth of the events, which also affects how the actors interpret these situations.
‘Something Like Gold’ is a feel-good movie that attempts to fit in details that require in-depth exploration. Unfortunately, this is not achieved, and the film ends up being overly shallow. It would have been a better outing if the story had been kept simple.
