MOVIE REVIEW: Emotional authenticity of ‘Gone’

From Blue Pictures Studio comes the movie Gone, spearheaded by Daniel Ademinokan. This July 2021 cinema release is the first feature film from Blue Pictures…

Movie: Gone 

Year: 2021

Director: Daniel Ademonikan 

Producer: Joy Odiete and Daniel Ademonikan

 

From Blue Pictures Studio comes the movie Gone, spearheaded by Daniel Ademinokan. This July 2021 cinema release is the first feature film from Blue Pictures Studio, and this film arrives a little later than the producers had previously announced. But, for what it’s worth, Gone feels very much worth the wait.

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‘Gone is a deeply emotional and dramatic thriller set in Lagos and New York City, and its cinematic spectacle perfectly blends a cast of three Generations of Nollywood’, the producers once said about this film. But perhaps the ‘set in New York’ might be doing some heavy lifting, as this film features two authentic – yet very brief – scenes in New York, and a handful of scanty flashbacks.

But the blend of cast transcends Nollywood generations, as Gone incorporates a cast that is very much the industry’s further past, immediate past, and future, all into the present. But that’s not what we’re here for, is it.

Directed by Ademinokan (who also produces the movie, alongside Joy Odiete), Gone stars Gabriel Afolayan (who has also graced works like Hustle, as well as Mamba’s Diamond and For Maria Ebun Pataki, all earlier this year), Sam Dede, and Bimbo Ademoye, and Stella Damasus. Sophie Alakija (My Village People), Bimbo Manuel, Kunle Remi, and Ngozi Ezeonu also appear in this pic.

Gone starts off with Animashaun ‘Ani’ (Sam Dede), a man who flees a loan shark in New York, after just getting out of jail, and travels back to Nigeria. While back home, Ani has plans to reconnect with his estranged family, after 25 years away. But as he himself knows and admits, it would be easier said than done.

It is with this complication from the off that Gone starts to earn its coin. This film starts off by presenting quite a tangled knot in front of us. And then it goes on a journey of authenticity in untangling it. Nothing is rushed, or, most importantly, nothing is really given to us in a straightforward and on-the-surface manner. Gone realises the complication that’s present here, and makes sure to take the careful route in clarifying and resolving it.

The authenticity in this movie is also reflected brilliantly by the characters. Gone is a film that is centred on a sense of realness and genuineness. It has little need to actively seek out comedy, a sense of humour is existent, but is very much beside the point; and it also has little reason to side-track itself from its main point here. This isn’t a movie that’s aiming to be likeable, but one that’s very much intent on getting real. But then there are moments when this movie gets even truer, and the acting helps bring that to life.

The way characters communicate the emotional conundrum and bother they find themselves in is incredible. Watch how Sam Dede – as Ani – cries silently in a bathroom and punches the walls in frustration. See how Stella Damasus – playing Ngozi – is way too overcome by emotions to properly speak and almost has to repeat herself. Witness how anger and pain make Bimbo Ademoye – as Anuchukwu – stutter and skip words in her speeches, or how Gabriel Afolayan – as Ayochukwu – always shows the right amount of anger to let you know this is a character with a chip on his shoulder. Such is emotional authenticity of Gone that makes its actors’ actions cathartic to its audience. Not just catharsis from one perspective, from all, both individually and as a collective.

Also impressive is the way Gone presents characters with problems. This is a movie in which the principal characters face difficulties they can’t avoid, and complications they absolutely have to deal with. Not quite physical obstacles, but emotional fences they have to cross and properly deal with. Yet, such is the incredible sense of realness with this film that it first makes them put it off in anxiety and trepidation, even though that inevitable resolution – whatever the outcome – has to come.

When characters make decisions and take actions – or inactions – however rash, their motivations are clear to see, and very much understandable. When characters lash out in anger or try to say the most hurtful words in pain, we get it. When characters are affected by said hurtful words, we know why this would be a such a stinging point for them. This is a movie that doesn’t take the easy way out.

Perhaps Gone makes a few missteps in the sense that some scenes linger for too long. Not to mention how the flashbacks should have told us a lot more than it did. Plus, this movie still opts for the happy solve-it-all ending, as well as an odd mid-credit scene, which may have sullied it a little. But such is the impressive journey with which Gone takes you that the end is almost an afterthought. Even amidst the jolly ending, this is about making repairs to a relationship, the kind we see. And it is also testament to the qualities of the movie that its flaws also seem like mere addendums.

The emotional ringer this film provides sticks with you, and yet you don’t lose sight of how impressive the acting is, even if almost lets you ignore how impressive the cinematography and production design of this movie is. You don’t quite how know this would end, but you know how you want it to, and how you need it to.

Captivating and cathartic. Intriguing and immaculate. The journey which Gone takes you on isn’t one in which the car speeds off at revving sound, but one that holds your hand every step of the way and lets you breathe it in.

Culled from sodasandpopcorn.ng