London Premiere of Michelle Bello's Flower Girl: A critical review of Flower Girl by Babso

The movie Flower Girl premiered at the Odeon Cinema Greenwich on Thursday 26^th September 2013. After a long time, the last time being Amina, a Nollywood Premiere was taking place on a weekday. One would have thought this would discourage people, but the turnout was very encouraging. On the red carpet were Nollywood celebrities, other celebrities including sport stars, promoters and supporters of the movie. For the first time according to the MC for the night, DJ Abass, the  Producer/Director of the film Michelle Bello and her two lead actor/actresses Chris Attoh (Umar) and Damilola Adegbite (Kemi) arrived for the premiere on schedule and to meet with fans. On getting into the screen, one could see that the premiere was properly thought of and the organisation was super. On each of the seats was a gift bag of the movie and one of the contents was a booklet which amongst other things gave a brief introduction of the movie and the actors in it.

In the movie itself Kemi is dying to get married while Umar is dying to get ahead with his career. When their relationship hits troubled waters, Kemi seeks the help of a movie superstar Tunde (Chuks Chukwujekwu) and they hatch a plan to get Kemi what she wants. However, the plan does not quite work out as they anticipate and soon they realise why people say love is a funny thing.

The script was easy to understand and straight forward and although it was for approximately 95 minutes, I feel some parts of the movie dragged on unnecessarily. Having said that, the movie was full of anticipation and comedy, people kept laughing. It profiled a true picture of the good aspects of Nigeria and not the Nigeria the foreign media always portray. It showed that in Nigeria, there are good places and that it is not only a land of slums. One of the realistic parts of the movie was when in the midst of dinner Power Holdings (NEPA) as some people know it struck and the house was in darkness. The whole cinema erupted in laughter. The sound was of high quality and so was the picture quality.

I must give kudos to the Producer/Director Michelle for her casting. While Damilola and Chris are well known and are household names particularly for their roles in Tinsel, people like Bikiya Graham Douglas (Stella), Chuks Chukwujekwu (Tunde) and Eku Edowor (Sapphire) brought the whole script together and made the movie even more comical and interesting. Kudos to all the cast.

The night ended with an open reception for everyone that attended. This again is a first since I started attending premieres and there was plenty food and room to network and mingle with the stars, although this was done under the watchful eyes of security personnel and Odeon staff. Before rounding up this review, kudos to Talking Drum Entertainment Ltd who brought the movie not only to be premiered in Odeon Greenwich but to be shown in cinemas across London.

In reviewing the overall performance of the movie, I would like to refer to the comments of one of the key players of the Nollywood industry in the UK. In his comments during the question and answer session which featured Michelle, Damilola and Chris, he said he observed that all the comments about the movie had been positive and that there had been no critiques and he gave a kudos for that. Every single person I spoke to after the movie including those involved in the UK Nollywood industry had good reviews for the film and I cannot but agree with them. I have tried as a Nollywood movie critique to look for something negative to say that would be enough to deduct points from the movie but I just cannot find any. In awarding my marks for this movie, I would like comments and for people who attended the premiere to positively critique my review and I would take all comments on board and if necessary re-review the movie.

In the light of all the above, I award this movie my first 5 star a total of 10 out of a possible 10 and like I always ask at the end of any movie I review, would I recommend the film. My answer is if you want two hours to chill, go and watch Flower Girl when it comes to the cinemas from 4^th October 2013. My answer is a most definite yes and I am sure that the over 200 guest that attended would agree with me.

watch the trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7Mc7bNsXUU