We are very familiar with African cinematography and the glit stubbornness of African writers and their refusal to diverge from African tales and fantasies that have no connection with reality. This makes it very hard to review some of the most well directed movies in Africa and always kept us wondering when the change in African movie scripting would happen.
Shona Ferguson, or let us say the Ferguson family are no strange faces on South African Television and an avid south African can easily tell which soapie they feature in, so when the gift was advertised on Television, it didn’t seem to catch our attention much.
We however decided to review the movie and did not regret we did. In over 5 years of movie reviews , this is by far one of the best movie production in the country, with a perfectly written script and a smart end direction to the film.
The movie started off on a slow but watchful pace, and then comes the mingle and jingle of the drama and love twist , a spike of thriller and some balanced suspense.
Shona Ferguson played the well successful fiancée of Bontle (ThembiSeete) who both are happy and contented, until we were introduced to the table of Bontle’s family at Christmas Supper. The irony of the tale comes in play when the jealous, older sister of Bontle reveals her hatred about the sectional love showed to Bontle by their mother.
The supper scene couldn’t have been better without the twist of Bontle’s x-boyfriend at the table, he brings an entirely different gag to the table as a detective and un-wealthy x trying to make an impression and win the heart of her once loved lady back. The tale reveals hidden wealth secrets , family skeletons and a bust of hatred and betrayal toped up with a well ended script. The Catch that dazzles us about the script is the way the movie unraveled and matched the the title in a sync manner with the name of the movie itself. It was nice to watch a movie that made both theatrical and rational sense.
We hope the TV company that bought the rights of the movie payed enough to keep this movie off the big screens as we believe it could have made a huge check, not withstanding the facts that it is a well written script, played on a low budget but very interesting and captivating. The story could have been better if the locations were more than the numbers in the movie. It made the movie scenes feel too predictive and some scenes looks duplicated, apart from that , it was a lovely production and we hope the standard of SA movies keep developing.
