Expectations are running high for this movie among fans of author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and particularly Nigerian audiences, who will have to wait another two weeks for general release, risking a field day by the country's rampant pirate DVD industry.
It brings to the big screen Adichie's Orange Prize-winning novel, and also stars the "man of the moment" Chiwetel Ejiofor, who partnered with the Oscar-winning Lupita Nyong'o to such stunning effect in the recent movie "12 Years a Slave".
It is a captivating tale of a romance punctuated by war and tragedy, alongside shifting family ties and allegiances. Nigeria, scene of the bloody Civil War in the mid 1960's, was barely recognisable in
the film, and this sense of lack of background realism was compounded by the main character, Olanna, played by the actress Thandie Newton, not looking or sounding remotely Nigerian.
Having said that, director Biyi Bamidele has captured the essence of the book through his skilfully crafted depiction of the chaos of wartime through fleeing refugees, and shifting political and economic fortunes. He succeeds better in showing the rapid disintegration of a comfortable bourgeois lifestyle post-Independence, to a haunted existence and a losing battle to maintain some semblance of normality, than in exposing the grim reality of the violence and dehumanisation of the Biafran war. No doubt budget considerations were a limiting factor, but this is nevertheless a quality production that remains true to the book.
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