naian
African – Ghanaian Movie Review
Who Loves Me ~ 2010
Story – Abdul Salam Mumuni
Screen Play – Phil Efe Bernard
Director – Frank Rajah Arase
Producer – Abdul Salam Mumuni
Actors and Actresses starring:
Jackie Appiah – Chantelle/ Jasmin Ghanaian Actress
Majid Michel – David Ghanaian Actor
Rama Brew – Grandma Jane
Kalsum Sinare – Akosua (David’s mum)
Artus Frank – Rick Liberian Actor
Abeiku Segoe – Adjei
Lillian Larkai – Janica
Dan Tei Mensah – Dr Alfred
Roger Quartey – Henry
Louis Saah Acquaman – Walter Enoch
Nollywood Themes:
Obession in a Ghanaian Movie
Mortality in a Ghanaian Movie
First Love in Ghana
Sacrifice in Ghana
My Rating – 45%
Chantelle, played by Jackie Appiah is at a business dinner date one night when an artist by the name of David (Majid Michel) catches sight of her and becomes immediately mesmerised, sketching her portrait from afar as she dines. On completion he gives a waiter the drawing to give to her along with poetry scrawled along its bottom. He then disappears leaving Chantelle confused and shaken.
After the meeting David becomes completely obsessed with Chantelle and his obsession consumes him as he sits in his room day and night painting her. By coincidence David happens to be the son of a woman Chantelle gave financial help to at a hospital. His mother comes home from the hospital to see that the paintings she sees strongly resemble the girl who came to her aid.
David’s becomes increasingly obsessed with Chantelle to the extent that his mother is at her wit’s end,
“This show of irresponsibility is getting on my nerves.” She tells him that he is verging on insane and indeed it does look that way. From plastering his wall with his paintings of Chantelle he startes plastering billboards around town and kissing her picture on the wall every time he enters the room.
Chantelle sees 3 different billboards containing her picture and becomes seriously disturbed. Eager to find the mystery poster she returns to the restaurant where she came into contact with David to try and seek information about his identity and whereabouts but it is to no avail. Will she ever find this mystery man?
*************SPOILERS*************
This movie had me all confused like a drunk on crack. There were so many things that had me baffled. Let me list:
*** At Chantelle and David’s first meeting after the restaurant episode why is there no mention of their first meeting and the billboards? Is it supposed to be a hallucination or what? I found that very bizarre. You have been searching for this guy all over town and now you come face to face with him you don’t think to ask him why he has been posting billboards of your face around the city? Then the next minute your are all pally pally visiting him at home and you still haven’t talked about how you met.
*** Chantelle supposedly has 72 hours to live because of a hole in the heart, but she is looking great, not a hint of tiredness… NOTHING. She has just 3 days to live and not a lick of pain? I DON’T BUY IT!
*** When David gets drunk and breaks his leg at the time that Chantelle is dying in hospital there is a scene where she walks into his hospital room, kisses him on the forehead and says sorry. It is weird because both David and his mother’s reactions are minimal so I assumed that Chantelle was walking into the room as either a ghost of a hallucination on David’s part as Davis is engaging with her but his mother isn’t THEN outside we see a hospital staff approach her outside and then David’s mother comes to speak with her. HUH? I really don’t get what is going on at this point.
*** The idiocy continues. We see David’s mother slit her wrists in the hotel bathroom. A note is then found where she says that she wants Chantelle to have her heart. What kind of nonsense? Your son is certifiable and now you are going to go and commit suicide and leave him in the hands of a woman he barely knows? Nonsense
*** It is funny in Nollywood every day people are dying of abortions but then when there is a heart transplant there is no talk of the risk of Chantelle’s body rejecting the heart which we know is quite a common issue.
*** Even the arrival of Ricky Chantelle’s first love is a bit like HUH? We have not even heard his name until he arrives at her party uninvited. So it feels very much like improvisation. Now one glance of him and she is ready to dash the man that she claims she loooves so much. His mother has died for her and she goes to insult him by offering to give him half her possessions. It doesn’t fit. From the person that we know Chantelle to be, this sort of whimsical behaviour doesn’t fit and there is no development to tell us how she became this way.
Chantelle tells her Grandma,
“Loving him has gone out of me.” HUH? SINCE WHEN? You were just at the party looking all loved up and singing his praises now you decide you don’t love him. The story is not well thought out at all. To top it off they have Ricky breezing in talking bout,
“The psychologists recommend that I leave the country for a while.” Oh please!
***In the credit’s Jackie is credited at Chantelle and Yasmin. I was hoping… Please please let this be a mistake and let this not be another twin story. That will take this movie from mediocre to awful. As it ended there was mention of Jasmin so no doubt Jasmin will be revealed in the Part 3 that is to follow.
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We see that the new guy Ricky, played by Artus Frank is a greedy opportunist, and this is what she dumped David for? She has just been through an ordeal and told the guy that she does not want to go to work or talk about work and still he is insistent on talking about it and specifically about taking lead in the company, so from that we can see that it is not her best interests he has at heart, but rather his own.
At the end of part 2 Chantelle throws in a twin sister *Rolling eyes* Where on earth does that comes from? Lawdhammercy! She gathers her two men david and Eric and tells them her dying wish is for them to find her sister, “Can you bring my sister back?” Back from where? Huh? What kinda bullsh** is this? At this point I am totally through with this movie so it is lucky that it is at the end.
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Majid Michel’s character David is reminiscent of the character of Sly in Chelsea except that in this movie David is absolutely certifiable. There is no doubt about it. His obsession is beyond creepy and you would definitely come to the conclusion that the guy has mental health issues. The question I was asking is, was David ever actually sane in the first place, or was it the one glance at Chantelle that turned him bonkers?I am also wondering, why on earth Majid has been cast again, straight after Chelsea in the EXACT same role. Talk about overkill. I guess they felt “If it ain’t broke why fix it” they must have felt they were onto a winning formula. Well it sho is broke now and it needs to be fixed.
Majid is totally believable as the loony David. We can completely believe him as the sane David too but the problem lies with the character itself. The character is not consistent. Jackie was aight and the new guy I didn’t really see enough of to thoroughly assess. I had hoped that after Artus Frank’s (they put his name in the credits this time waaheeey! LOL) role in Chelsea this role would be much bigger, but perhaps his role will be bigger in Part 3. He is a hottie and from what I saw he has got some chops so it just remains to be seen if he will be one of the contenders to the throne for Ghana’s Top Actor alongside Majid and John.
If you are hoping this movie will be on the same level in terms of quality as Chelea then hope no more. I can tell you point blank that it is not. I found Chelsea as a story much easier to digest, or perhaps the execution in Chelsea was just better. The only way such a story would make sense to me would be if David had been a known madman for a period of time. It was just completely unrealistic to me that a man who was acting as loony as he was would suddenly turn normal with no traits of the madness again. I think that Venus are riding high on the back of Chelsea in bringing this trash out. The only similarity between the movies is that Majid is a painter with a crazy obsession about a woman. I guess it is true that Adbul and Frank work better separately than together and this movie is a perfect example of that.
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In short I would not recommend this movie. It was nicely shot in terms of the picture and the sound was good. I cannot fault any of the acting but ultimately where it failed was the fluidity of the story and character development. They were just throwing in new angles at every opportunity and a lot of it simply did not make sense to me. Thumbs down.
i thought tht i was the only who felt lost and confused by this movie. i only watched the first part, and never bothered to watch the rest.
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