Joseph Omoniyi
Synopsis/Summary
This modern-day remake of the 1994 classic, Glamour Girls follows the story of four high-end female escorts, desperate to pursue and maintain glamour, wealth, and the reinvention of the female gender in ‘the world of men’ until their ambition is threatened by love, a killing, and theft. Written by Kemi Adesoye, produced by Ambibola Craig and Charles Okpaleke, and directed by Bunmi Ajakaiye. Glamour Girls is a modern retelling of the 1994 classic Nollywood movie.
CDP
Identifying the Central Dramatic Problem of this movie is quite a task as the storyline is jarred with many stories rushed and forced into its plotting. You can almost feel dizzy trying to follow this film story, as it is everywhere and nowhere. Emma is desperate to break the poverty cycle of her family by desperately making it in the high-end escort world. Will she succeed? Louise wants to keep her promiscuous lifestyle from her husband; will he finally find out? Jemma wants to keep supporting her hubby, who has been on life support and her only son without going back to ‘her vomit’. Helion wants to be in the game without having a clear motivation.
Plot/Sub-plot/Plants
Getting into the plotting of this movie is a severe headache. First, it kicked off with an unconvincing opening scene. Let us talk about the acting and cinematography later; for now, let us stick with the story structure. So, Emmanuella (Sharon Ooja), a stripper, is accused of stealing a ring after she entertained a group of clients at the club. The victim’s bodyguard offers to pay a hundred dollars if the ring is not found on her, and voila! After pressing every sensitive part of her body, he ‘magically’ produces the ring from nowhere, leaving everyone amazed at Emma’s thieving skills, including Frances, Emma’s (Emmanuella’s) boss, who had vowed that her girls do not steal. Apart from the fact that this supposed stunt is far from believable, a bodyguard of that class choosing that ‘skill’ to press breast and bumbum is sickening. That that was the only setup the writer could come up with is an insult to the audience’s intelligence.
So, after being fired from her stripping job, alongside two of her colleagues, Emma desperately approaches Donna (Nse Ikpe Etim), who poses as an interior designer in public but runs a high-end female escort company. After ‘claiming’ they were sent by Frances, yes. Same Frances that fired Emma. They are rejected for not being qualified, but Emma is not having it. She shows her potential by stripping herself half-naked, baring her motivation, and Donna is finally convinced that someone with no certificate can join her classic team of ‘hook-up babes’.
Chief Nkem, one of Donna’s retained, wealthy, and mighty clients, is in town and requests the girls for “entertainment” at a get-together party with his colleagues. After checking if the Chief needed a special request and made none, Donna proceeds to request an interior decoration contract that would pitch her against Nkem’s wife, her major competitor.
Enters Jemma, who refuses to give up on her husband, who is on life support, despite the doctor’s advice.
Donna is driven home by the Chief to meet her supposed hubby. She is surprised to meet a romantic wedding anniversary welcome; even as her husband is disappointed, she comes home with “another necklace”.
Meanwhile, Louise uses one of her tricks to keep her innocent husband, Aaron (Uzor Arukwe), from being suspicious, but not for too long. To surprise his darling wife, he enters Nigeria without informing her beforehand. After turning down Donna’s advice to send him back abroad, Louise runs into trouble as her husband catches her with one of her clients. He leaves with their children threatening to let the hell lose if she does not send money for their upkeep.
After receiving her personality, status, and physical look lift and struggling to get a client at the get-together party, Emma is helped by guess who, the ‘breast-and-bumbum-pressing’ bodyguard, who introduces her to his new boss, Segun (Femi Branch). Segun picks a special interest in Emma and decides to retain her as his babe, trains her in school, and then strong-armed a bank CEO to employ her as a bank manager in one of his branches. That does not last long as Emma gets humiliated by the CEO’s daughter inside the bank premises. She cries to Segun, who compounds her humiliation by requesting for her to strip for him in Zeribe’s presence. Embarrassed, Emma runs into her room crying, but guess who becomes the ‘consoler of the brethren’? Zeribe! He leaves his boss downstairs and enters his boss’ babe’s room to convince her not to turn down his boss’ request; amazing! Please wait for it, in any case. So as a form of appreciation, Emma seduces Zeribe to sleep with her while Segun fumes downstairs at Emma’s moaning, without retaliating or rolling any head. Incredible!
Jemma is condemned to finally take Donna’s offer to join the girls at the get-together, where she feels out of place until she meets another out-of-place partner, Alexander (Lynxxx), who works as an accountant for all the big men. They ‘fall in sex and later into a situationship’. Then, one night, she catches Alex molesting her son and kills him. Yeah! We do not know how, you know, some things just happen, especially such a calm woman murdering such a macho, muscular man without a gun.
Donna devises a plan to help cover up for her friend and disposes of the body, claiming Alex suddenly disappears. However, Chief Nkem finds it hard to believe, pointing at Jemma as the prime suspect and demanding he speaks with her regarding something that belongs to “the wolves” in possession of the missing Alex.
Wait, lest I forget, Helion (Segi Ogidan) is a drug addict daughter of a wealthy parent and just wants to be in the game for the fun of it. So, she gets pregnant and then one day, all of a sudden, overdoses—end of her story.
Chief Nkem unsettles the ladies’ world internally and physically. His boys burst into their homes and Donna’s office searching for the missing piece. Donna realises there is more to the missing piece and attempts to appease Nkem’s wife, who reveals that the missing piece her husband is desperately searching for is big forex that runs into billions of dollars.
Following Nkem’s wife’s advice to get a bigger fish if she wants to stop a shark from eating her alive, Donna searches for the veterans and mentors in the game, Doris (Gloria Anozie-Young), and Thelma (Dolly Unachukwu) from the original movie. On her knees, she begs her predecessors to help her plead with Chief Nkem to stop harassing her girls. Nostalgia, right? That is all about this plot point, no brain, no point, no sense, nothing significant to the plot. Absolutely, not needed. She travels to the end of the world to seek their help, and then she goes back to continue to figure out how to find a resolution herself.
So, Donna returns as Jemma also returns to her house to find Alex’s “Billionaire necklace” and realises it is a flash drive that contains what they say it contains, “ten billion dollars”. Dona employs a Francophone hacker who cracks the drive after demanding sex with Emma as part of his payment. Then, Zeribe double-crosses the women again, ‘magically’ hiding the drive on Emma’s body, who has now taken a cue from their first meeting to hide the drive in his pocket—nailing Zeribe as the culprit. Nkem’s bodyguards whisk him away, only for the movie to reveal how Donna has a duplicate drive. With Donna, such things are possible!
Screenplay
The screenplay of this movie is one of its major downfalls. No doubt there is great potential in the story idea, but the screenwriter did a not-so-good job trying to force what is not together in one feature film. There is no specific story in this story. They are just trying to force four different plots together. Many loose ends, several other illogical plot points, and needless characters. Everything is just structureless. Take each scene; for example, there is no clear dynamic, emotional turn, patchy dialogues, and more. What exactly do they go to do in Cancun? What is the essence of Donna’s visit to her mentors, and what did they do after her visit? Zeribe mentions the flash has 10 billion dollars, while Donna mentions Chief confirms they received their “15 billion dollars”. The screenplay is an absolute disaster. No flesh, no substance, just a bony fluffy thought of meat. Doing a total reconstruction from the original should have been a laudable effort, but the screenwriter blew the chance.
Character and Characterisation
The characterisation of this movie is also one of its weaknesses. Saying it is abysmal is an understatement. For instance, the screenwriter tries to make a Hollywood wannabe nasty bitch out of Donna, but she ends up as a shallow persona with no proper development. Veteran Nse Ikpe Etim did a fantastic job trying to carry the character with postures, but there is little she can do without motivated actions.
Helion is another useless character in this movie. Take her out, and nothing would happen to the already whack plotting.
Emma and Jemma have bites of substances. Emma wants to break the poverty cycle, but we never see what she does for her family when she finally gets the wealth. Jemma is motivated by love. First, for her sick husband, for whom she decided to return to the ‘business’, and then for her child, for whom she committed murder.
The lack of character dimension makes it a difficult task for the actors who struggle through this pain.
Cinematography
The cinematography of this movie is, however, a reasonable effort. Beautiful, sharp pictures, shots, and visual elements are used to sell glamour, class, and power. It is tough to see beyond the coverage in the cinematography of most Nollywood movies. So, this movie did not commit any unforgivable sin in that regard, as most of its shots are just for exposure rather than storytelling, but it does well in some scenes, in conjunction with other departments, to create glamourous pictures and compositions.
Opening with Emma stripping for the big boys at the club, the cinematography sets up a relationship between Zeribe and Emma. With a Subtle movement, move-ins, and pans, we are introduced to Zeribe, who sits lusting after Emma’s body. Also, with a Hollywood-styled character-reveal shot, we are introduced to Donna in all her ‘Porsche glory’ and then when she finally sits, she is placed at the centre of the frame as she provides on-the-job advice to Louise and then attends to “the bottom of the barrel” who come to seek a job in her establishment. And then, the cinematography uses movements to show Emma leaving her friends behind in the trenches as she leaves them outside and barges into Donna’s office also to get her full frame standing in the centre, with all of her desperation, facing Donna, who gets a close-up.
Directorial Prowess/Production Design/Post-production
Bunmi Ajakaiye directs significant parts of this movie with movements and glamour, with the help of the fantastic production design that creates aesthetic costumes that match the characters’ class and status. For instance, Emma’s rise from grass to grace. The sound design is, however, flawed. The audio sounds like it was recorded with a mobile phone. The lines are out of sync in some scenes, and the music scores are so out of place and overdone.
Lesson Learnt
It is hard to find a lesson that this remake wants the audience to follow.
Conclusion
The Glamour Girls remake has plenty of potential that was blown by the screenplay and directing. Instead, it is a total disappointment. A ‘misstake’, rather than a “remake”. 80% of the movie is bad.
Verdict
This movie earns a 20/10– The director is advised to return to film school
Shoots.ng Score Guide
Every Item is 10 marks and 100% in all.
71- 100%= you are the bomb, be ready for Oscar
51-70%= thank you for repping quality
31- 50%= you can do better, up your game
11-30%= Return to film school
01- 10%= Filming is not for you, look for another job
Picture credits- Internet
