Whatever happens in The Counsellor, it feels like the next bullet point of a plot outline barely fleshed out, with too few moments to allow for an exploration of the characters.
By Victory Hayzard Solum
It is only a couple of days to Valentine’s, and Aisha/Ayi and Gbenro are dumped by their romantic partners. With nonrefundable tickets to a Valentine’s Day retreat already booked, they show up at the venue, where they get paired up by the matchmaking retreat manager, Andikan, who also happens to be Ayi’s best friend. Months later, the duo are affianced lovers ready for their nuptials. But Gbenro’s mother stands on the path of their abrupt wedding plans. And to win her over, their relationship must survive a one-week trial and ordeal with Dr Cynthia, the counsellor, in the titular romantic comedy, The Counsellor.
Directed by Muyiwa Aluko (The Playbook, Worlds Apart), The Counsellor is a Showmax original produced by Hadizat Ibrahim (The Playbook). It features the cinematography of Yinka Adegoke (Blurred, Choke), with John “Jbars” Ogbechie (Gangs of Lagos, Brotherhood) manning its score and soundtrack.
For a movie titled, “The Counsellor”, it’s intriguing how we do not meet the said counsellor until some fifty-four minutes into this one-hour fifty-five-minute flick. This suggests that it takes almost an hour to set up its other principal characters. Well, after all that time, what do we know about them?
Aisha “Ayi”, played by Teniola Aladese (Superstar, Little Black Book), is a happy-go-lucky girl with a quirky dress sense who celebrates weekly and monthly love anniversaries. She is a baker who, for reasons best known to her, keeps putting off setting up shop properly.
Gbenro, played by David Eyo, might not realise it, but he can be justifiably labelled as insensitive. With more than a few things to learn about tact, his girlfriend breaks up with him on account of his seeming aversion to getting married. By his account, it is too early to consider after just four months of dating. However sensible that might seem, within three months, he is proposing to another woman for a marriage put on hold only by the intervention of his mother.
Whatever impressions you might get from these descriptions, though, they do not stick for the rest of the movie. Ayi does continue to seem happy-go-lucky but gone are the quirky clothes and the never-ending celebration of love. It is possible that she makes this switch by learning from her past mistakes, but we just never catch a hint of the moment. And like the time jumps peppered throughout the movie without warning, the characters go through shifts in the highlights of their personalities. This is true for Gbenro, whose characterisation goes from snickering non-commital to becoming solely that of the stereotypical “mummy’s boy”. And yet, of the two, Eyo seems more at home with his character.
Aladese does not exactly clash against her character. Rather, she plays a cardboard-based caricature of her role. It is not until later that, presented with bits of conflict, she attempts to whip up any smidgen of acting. Before then, she serves up a nodding, jumping dolt of a character, albeit one with a smile that says she knows just how unrealistic she is being, and cannot begin to take herself seriously. Although this would imply that some seriousness exists somewhere in this movie, for the most part, there isn’t.
Watching the characters at play or exercise under the scrutiny of the counsellor, one wonders if one were observing a camera rehearsal, with all thoughts to a proper recording being for the birds. While this is ongoing, the sound engineer presses Play and Stop on his equipment, leading to glitches in the recording, where the audio either disappears or takes forever to synch in. But, perhaps the fault lies with the story.
Whatever happens in The Counsellor, it feels like the next bullet point of a plot outline barely fleshed out, with too few moments to allow for an exploration of the characters. Which is almost impossible to believe, considering how many scenes there are. As with the couple’s exercises administered by the counsellor, we are simply faced with well-known touch points of topicalities, but none handled in any way indicative of actual thought. What little aspects of the film are worth commending lie in the direction of its supporting cast.
Moyinoluwa Olutayo (Worlds Apart, Wedding Plan) stars as Mrs. Solanke, Gbenro’s mum. She plays the nosy disapproving potential mother-in-law looking out for her son’s best interests, without ever being over the top about it. She brings maturity to her scenes which appears lacking for the rest of the movie.
Uzoamaka Aniunoh (Mami Wata, A Naija Christmas) as Andikan, Ayi’s best friend, is the compassionate one who sees her pal through her break-up, becoming her ultimate matchmaker. She radiates a warmth through the film which goes through Ayi and out to the viewer.
Eyiyeme Olivia Rogbiyin (A Hotel Called Memory) plays Dr Cynthia, the eponymous counsellor. But while the film sets her up with an interesting albeit unsurprising back story, she plays her counselling scenes with a certain stiffness which borders on robotic. There seems to be no colour to her performance as she outlines task after task for the would-be spouses. Whether the drabness of the character comes from poor acting or a stunningly realistic portrayal is anybody’s guess.
The Counsellor is billed as a romantic comedy, but it is terribly unfunny, and what points it raises in its exploration of the pitfalls of romance might be best picked up from internet listicles and how-to magazines.
Rating: 1.5/5
(The Counsellor is currently streaming on Showmax)
Victory Hayzard Solum is a freelance writer with an irrepressible passion for the cinematic arts. Here he explores the sights, sounds, and magic of the shadow-making medium and their enrichment of the human experience. A longstanding ghostwriter, he may have authored the last bestselling novel you read.