B for Boy
Where: Cineplex Odeon
When: Today, 1 p.m.
Rating: 3/5 stars
On the surface, the Nigerian couple at the heart of Chika Anadu’s heart-wrenching tale of maternal strife in a patriarchal society would seem to have it all — certainly more than you might expect, since so many festival films out of Africa tend to dramatize the impact of poverty, corruption and political instability.
Businesswoman Amake (Uche Nwadili), her loving, respectful husband Nonso (Nonso Odogwu) and their bright seven-year-old daughter live a comfortable middle-class existence. But even that can’t compensate for the despair that lies ahead if Amake, six months pregnant and almost 40, bears a second girl instead of a boy.
Even as the clock ticks, Nonso’s family, especially his overbearing mother, is pressuring him to take a second wife, as is his right in this culture if Amake can’t bear a male heir.
Suffice it to say, the lengths to which his increasingly ostracized wife will go to avoid this fate ratchet up the tension and potential for heartbreak — and that’s all we’ll say to avoid revealing essential plot developments.
Some filmgoers might feel cheated by what transpires in this technically uneven and overlong (by about 20 minutes) but nonetheless engrossing cultural snapshot.
Anadu creates a revealing and affecting portrait of ingrained injustice within a patriarchal society, and while she doesn’t offer potential solutions to the struggles facing Nigerian mothers, she opens our eyes to the consequences of a severe gender divide that in Western society seems unthinkable.
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