“Principles are everything” is a message that a modern Igbo father is trying to impart to all of his children. He especially wants to impart this message to his eldest son, Kingsley (Paul Nnadiekwe), a college graduate who gets by in Nigeria. Life in a country with a wealth disparity creates generational struggles for the lower middle class.
But it gets worse for Kingsley as his father dies, and the only person he can rely on to get a job to help pay for the funeral and hospital bills is his uncle Boniface (Blossom Chukwujekwu). I’ll spit out what Boniface does to get money. He hires people to write emails claiming that he’s a Nigerian prince. Kingsley takes that job and it changes him.
I admire the gumption to write a book and adapt a film like Ishaya Babko’s adaptation of Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s I Do Not Come To You By Chance. It’s like Canadian movies about the Residential schools although we have a few of those. My big issue about this is that it’s not winking at the wrong moments.
There’s an irony that Kingsley’s mother doesn’t want him to be in the scamming business because she wants him to work for an oil company, and if you know, you know. And of course, when it winks, it winks at the wrong moments like that scene in the end. At least the pacing and story beats are fine, its plot points dropping like feathers instead of bowling balls.
- Genre: Comedy
- Release Date: 9/7/2023
- Directed by: Ishaya Bako
- Starring: Blossom Chukwujekwu, Paul Nnadiekwe
- Produced by: Chinny Carter, Genevieve Nnaji
- Written by: Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
