ROSES AND IVY (NOLLYWOOD SERIES REVIEW)
After watching this series, all I can say is that I have mixed feelings.
For starters, this had no business being a series. There were no sufficient subplots to make for a series. It isn’t any different from those recent under - or two hours movies on different streaming platforms if you ask me.
Produced by Biodun Stephen, “Roses & Ivy” has its whole storyline centered around the Adigwe sisters.
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SYNOPSES
Evelyn (Munachi Abii) and Roselyn (Uche Montana) grew up in Oluwole Street with one having to sacrifice her happiness for the other even up to adulthood till it got the better of her.
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MOVIE REVIEW
The first episode went on about the birth of the younger sister and how it altered the dynamics of the Adigwe household. A very promising start, I’d say, as pretty much all the characters were established. The child actors did awesome in their interpretations as it lures the viewer into their world.
By the end of the second episode, however, the story took a rather different route, and by the third episode, it felt like one was watching a different series as it seemingly lost its catchy appeal.
The fourth, being the final episode, sort of married the other episodes together, but it all felt all over the place at a rather slow pace. I saw myself looking for ways to increase my watch speed.
See, the runtime of the entire series could have collapsed into a 1-hour 30-minute movie and still would have made its impact. So I really do not buy into the whole series thing as it didn’t sell to me.
We knew that Roselyn was the young one, selfish, manipulative, full of life, and wanted nothing from life other than to enjoy herself to the fullest while Evelyn was the studious and industrious one. Out of the blues, Roselyn is married and three years down the line, is now ready for a child and becomes so desperate for a child even to the point of going as far as convincing her sister and husband into doing the abominable.
Fine and good, life is unpredictable. Well played. Two parts of this series, however, got me really angry viz:
The mother-in-law who started the whole thing all of a sudden becomes self-righteous and hypocritical when the deed had been done. Was this meant to be a twist and turn for a thriller?
Roselyn, after instigating & manipulating her sister and husband into going against their will, boom, next thing, she starts to play the victim so much so that everyone is apologising to her as she becomes the saint in all of it. What exactly was the writer of this story driving at or trying to achieve? Glorify evil?
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To be clear, I take no sides, but c’omon! Who does that? Seriously, who does that? I wouldn’t be curious for a second season, but I suspect that Rose’s hands are not entirely clean for the tragedy that occurred towards the end of the series. I’d rather there’s no sequel, please. Let’s live with the thoughts.
The voice-over was okay, and the actors did their thing. The younger versions of Lanre Shabba (Taye Arimoro) and the girls with their older versions, especially for Evelyn, were a great match, too. However, at the end of this series, none of the older characters were strong or compelling enough to draw me into their world. None! There was no one to root for.
The makeup and hair changed Uche Montana’s looks. I could barely recognise her in most of the scenes. Munachi’s model look wasn’t flattered in this film at all. To me, the costume and wardrobe didn’t do justice one tinee tiny bit. What were all those dresses Evelyn kept wearing?
The title “Roses & Ivy” also struggled to tally. Although they did try to fuse it into the series by the end of episode four during all the forgiveness talks where Roselyn called Evelyn “Ivy” and Evelyn on the other hand referred to Roselyn as “Rose”
…but it didn’t fly in my opinion cause how then do you explain ‘ROSES’ and who shortens Evelyn to IVY? It’s ’Eve’ or 'Lyn' thaI know but who knows. The good thing here is, it’s a great idea for names of twin girls “Roselyn & Evelyn”
There are much better titles to have been used like; “The Adigwe Sisters” or “Sister’s Sacrifice” etc.
As mentioned earlier, there were little or no subplots sufficient for a series. We only know in our headspace that Roselyn had a really good job. We never saw her workplace. Was she doing a remote job? Lanre too, did he not have friends?
We also didn’t get to see Evelyn’s life and how she lived on her own, neither did we see her place of work she hated so much. The series almost later focused on Roselyn. I guess to show the extent of her self-centredness, but it seems to be more of an oversight than a planned target.
Conclusively, this series though interesting in a way, attempted to highlight certain issues such as maternal mortality & its effects on children and families, sacrifices, educational struggles for admissions, infertility in marriages, surrogacy, pressures from mothers-in-law, betrayal, etc but it failed to deliver in its direction as none of these concepts had a really strong base or depth.
Apart from a few good performances, especially from Uche Montana and Kalu Ikeagu, who played the girls’ father (as Mr. Adigwe), others were a hit or miss; sometimes good, sometimes not. We hope for a more enhanced or improved production subsequently.
I'll give this film a 6/10.
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I hope that this was interesting to read. Thanks for coming around.