Blood Sisters: A Bold Step For Netflix Naija
Halfway through Blood Sisters — Netflix’s latest Original Nigerian thriller series, I kept waiting for Nollywood veteran Ramsey Nouah’s Strong Silent Uncle B to say something. Anything. Anything at all. He never did. Although, he did look committed, a stoic observer in this muddled world of drama, lust, and murder. Over time, however, that zeal seemed to turn into boredom. A growing tinge of exasperation with the perpetual shortcomings of those he had been fated to observe and protect from the shadows. You find yourself feeling for him.
Long time friends, Sarah and Kemi (played by Ini Dima Okojie and Nancy Isime) find themselves on the run after an eventful and murderous night at the wedding of Sarah and her abusive fiance, Kola Ademola. A rather short but memorable performance crafted honestly by Deyemi Okanlawon. “Change the dress” He says, with a near sociopathic smile attached to his face. Sarah is unsettled, Ini Dima Okojie doing well to show us this clearly is not a suggestion.
A happy marriage does not appear to be on the horizon and only a couple of scenes later, whatever opportunities of union are broken. Kola has disappeared. His Family Concerned. Our protagonists? Figuring out how to chop up the body.
Nollywood has always had a tendency to bloat — unnecessary cameos and overextended dialogue that take away from the seriousness and believability of scenes. The show’s well paced and strong opening 30 minutes are a perfect indication of what it can achieve when it refuses to do so. Unfortunately, it seems to lose its way after that.
In the sequence where Kola’s body is to be chopped up and hidden, the script gives us a detour into the unintelligent musings of the family security man convinced that Sarah is the cause of all the Ademola family’s new problems. Sarah and Kemi in their bid to hide the body are masquerading as cleaners. They go back and forth in some unnecessary dialogue until “He ran away because e no wan marry, and If you look am, na im wife, that im wife look like pesin wey no go allow man be man” The gateman says.
This scene, if better staged as simply heard dialogue, had the potential to add a bit of weight to our understanding of Sarah’s dilemma. Instead it takes away from it, the camera honing in on Sarah’s exaggerated reaction and the feminist messaging becomes lost in translation. Ironically, Kemi’s immediate instinct is to berate Sarah to “Focus!”
Not uncommon of the thriller genre, Kola’s murder seems to reduce a lot of the film’s sensitive themes into mere plot devices. Domestic abuse? The moral price of manslaughter or self defense? The consequences of greed induced marriages? Classicism and inter marriage tensions? Feminist theory?
The show’s unwillingness to explore too much of this means we’re largely in for another spectacle driven and a little bland detective show? At least, that’s what it feels like when Wale Ojo’s olfactory driven Inspector Joe shows up. Actually, no, at this point, it feels like a bad Hollywood crossover. Ain’t fooling anyone with that accent, Officer Chicago.
Here’s an open secret — you’re probably just as good of a detective as he is as well. Maybe even better. His mannerisms and shoddiness are probably the worst thing about Blood sisters, crashing down believability to an absolute zero in whatever scene he’s in. You genuinely feel bad for our protagonists when you realize that he just might be their last hope.
The dialogue is clearly inspired, if maybe a bit unrealistic to our climes but a sea of uneven performances mean they often end up landing without the full weight of their intentions. Kemi’s repeated attempts to remind Sarah of the gravity of their actions feel more like an inside joke than an observable experience. Ini and Nancy are clearly at their best when they aren’t forcibly yelling at each other — in the warm, lighthearted moments of the opening episode and the tragic and emotionally poignant scene when they discuss Kenny’s (Ibrahim Suleiman) sacrifice.
The routinely brilliant Gabriel Afolayan uses a certain clunkiness to typify the insecurity of Kola’s brother, the underappreciated Femi. When we first see him, he’s hiring an assassin to murder his only brother on his wedding night. Femi is the first born and as a result, should be the automatic heir to the family fortune. Unfortunately, Kola is mommy’s favorite and so finds himself on the fringes of the family business, desperate to break bad.
His dynamic with his wife, Kehinde Bankole as Yinka — the real star of this show, is always intentionally shot with Yinka in some standing/dominant position and Femi shrunk or leaned back into a chair. It serves the show well, providing a clear representation of who exactly is pulling the strings. Although, this staging seems to constantly devolve into some unnecessary and poorly edited s** scene to perhaps add some kind of edge. It quickly becomes more jarring than anything else.
The mystery of Blood Sisters is separated into two questions, explored in two acts by our characters. What happened to Kola? And Why? From the opening 30 minutes, the audience already knows the answer to both. The intended suspense is thus a game of when our protagonists will be caught, which the show tries its best to draw out over four episodes.
Ramsey Nouah’s wildcard Uncle B was criminally underutilized in this game of cat and mouse, only showing some muscle in the penultimate episode where the ‘sisters’ somehow manage to escape his grasp after he largely beats both of them to a pulp. Kemi, ever the murderous superwoman, manages to knock him down after taking several heavy punches to the stomach. Nancy Isime’s rather strained performance means you would not be too surprised were Kemi to confess to doing this all her life.
Blood sisters does manage to find some of its rhythm again for the finale, Genoveva Umeh’s unhinged but well intentioned Timeyin taking center stage in an ending that genuinely leaves more questions than it answers. By the time it arrives though, you feel a certain kind of relief.
Not a bad day at the office for Nollywood, but not a very good one either.
