By Agbo Favour Amarachi
BOLANLE (Nancy Isime) works as a customer care representative for a logistics company and is forced to work from home immediately after the pandemic hits. Bolanle is apprehensive about being alone during the lockdown because her boyfriend, TJ (Eso Dike), is a doctor and would probably be too busy to spend time with her. Unfortunately, they have a fight and TJ leaves. To apologize, Bolanle misdials and calls Alex (Deyemi Okanlawon), igniting a friendship that would blossom through the lockdown. During this period, they develop feelings for each other, but standing in the way of their love is Uduak (Teniola Aladese), Alex’s ex-girlfriend. They eventually overcame all that and Bolanle got to pursue her passion for cooking after breaking up with T.J and became a celebrity chef with Alex on her side as her newfound lover. This was how the movie began.
Although enjoyable, Love In A Pandemic has several details that are undercooked, and some that are unnecessary. The selling point of the story is Bolanle finding love during a trying time and while the plot progresses in a way that makes her and Alex develop feelings for each other, the way in which this happens does not get enough screen time compared to how much her failing relationship is focused on. It looked ridiculous to see Alex running to create a Bollywood-like airport heart-melting scene because, why was he running, really? It’s not like she was leaving the country. Also unnecessary is the aspect of Bolanle’s weight loss journey, as we did not see her add the weight during the plot or see her lose it at the end of the day (Nancy might have just added all that weight for nothing, or not).
The viewer is unsure how to feel the storyline of the movie. It’s a good watch. But not one of the best one have seen. It lacks suspense and the mushy feeling a normal love movie should have. I mean, how can I watch a love movie and not have any “aww” moments? From the beginning of the movie, I could predict its flow, and it played out exactly that way. Let’s not even talk about the writer telling us a story of a pandemic that happened in 2020 in 2023. Like really?
The directing wasn’t bad at all. We had believable scenes, but that could also be because the style of the story didn’t require too much. Overall, the director did a good job bringing the story to life.
The actors in “Love in a Pandemic” made it a good watch. Despite knowing where the story was headed, we were still interested in watching it play out to the end. Nancy Isime has grown as an actor, which is amazing to see. There is no doubt that Deyemi Okanlawon is an amazing actor, and we saw that again. The scenes between Teniola Alasede and Deyemi were annoyingly cute; I loved watching those scenes. Teniola is a good actress. Ronke Odusanya and Uche Montana, although they were in just a few scenes, did well.
