FREEDOM
Summary:
A grieving widower obsessed with finding his beloved wife who had gone missing ends up in a mental hospital and discovers a year later that everything is not as it seems.
Now to the Review:
More than expected, All the actors brought their characters to live, except for the security/door man who displayed very poorly. Tasteful cinematography, lights, plot, twist, mood, location were all sweet waters.
A flamboyant businessman Tobi (Etim Effiong) marries the love of his life Shola (Osas Ighodaro) in what seems to be a fairytale romantic.
The darling ever romantic husband serves his beloved Shola breakfast on bed and washes her away with several gifts. The ideal union written in the stars.
He gives Shola everything material any woman could ever dream of and one day, just like that. she stepped out to the super market to get some groceries but… She never came back.
His phone rings, she tells him the network was terrible. The unsuspecting husband was worried to his feet, he steps out to get her but as he reaches the super market, she was no where to be found. She had gone missing.
After one year of futile search investigations, the authorities concluded she was no where to be found and probably dead. Tobi was advises him to move on but wouldn’t listen.
Shola’s family planned a funeral for their beloved daughter. He is expected to show respect by attending even if he hasn’t given up on finding her.
He shows up. His friend Kevwe was shocked to see him but Tobi thought he had spotted his wife somewhere around, he keeps looking up but Kevwe tells him he was only imagining things.
Alone in his shell, mourning. The grieving widower flashes back to when he donated handsomely to his wife’s charity foundation as an angel investor. She was super excited. She hugs him tightly. She could finally feed her kids.
Days became weeks and weeks quickly turned into months. He was was trying to move on until that message popped up on his office computer screen.
He was notified of a debit alert of 2 million Naira on his missing wife’s bank account. He calls the bank to confirm the financial activity but they wouldn’t reveal any more information without his wife’s permission. That was bank policy.
I keep thinking 🤔!!! Did she fake her own kidnapping or whatever only to steal from him? Hmm 🤔
He reaches out to his old bank friend for a favor. The friend sends him a live video of someone who appear to be his missing wife withdrawing from an ATM.
He rushes to her family’s house and confronts them. He shows them the video. Her mother acted a little surprised but the father claimed it could be any woman in Lagos. That was very fishy and suspicious of you asked me. 🤨
Tobi searches the place but could not find his missing wife. He seems to have lost his mind and everyone around him suggests he sees a therapist. He doesn’t agree. He’s hurt and lost in a world without his dear wife, Shola. He finally agrees to see a shrink.
One big issue I have with this movie is the therapist. 🤦♂️ For me, She was too dressed and flashy for a therapist. She looked more like a damsel going on a date or trying to impress a man.
Her appearance alone presents a distraction. The glossy lipstick, the eye shadows, perfect makeover, her revealing dresses and the way she even stares at him could easily put a patient in a fix.
But it worked and after a year of what appeared to be a therapy session, he, Tobi was beginning to feel better. He starts go out on a date again.
While on that particular date, he bumps into an old friend/associate who quizzed him for being absent at a resent fundraiser.
He (The friend) shows him some photos from the fundraiser and Etim sees his missing wife in the frame and then boom 💥 the circle of grief and delusion started wild again.
He agrees to go to a mental health institution for a more effective-more-permanent solution because he was beginning to feel a psychological breakdown and unable to separate reality from his hallucinations.
But this is where it gets interesting.
On that hospital bed, as he laid down disoriented, He saw Shola walk in. It seemed like a dream, only that it wasn’t. The story incidentally flashes back to the times he has abused her.
This twist is super awesome, I find myself totally flushed away with butterflies, I mean who would’ve guessed that the innocent grieving widower would turn out to be an abusive husband. Wow!! I am officially blown.
Still on the flash back :
The scene where he had her father arrested for confronting him with two police officers over domestic v|olence practically explained in detail the Nigerian expression of power. Amazing.
Apparently, Shola had tried to flee this abusive marriage several times but she keeps getting beat up. Tobi is just too powerful and highly connected. Totally obsessed with her to a point that he was willing to hurt himself just to prove that point.
His best friend Kevwe finally opens up to his wife Shola and tells he that he didn’t want to be a part of another cover up for her husband, Tobi because it wouldn’t be the first time.
He warns her to leave him or risk being abused to death like his Ex. He suggested she planned her own disappearance. Her parents were in on it.
Fast forward to the mental correctional institution, sedated and disoriented, his best friend gets him to sign off on some paperwork.
As a movie enthusiast, I thought they were company documents but no no, Those were divorce proceedings. 😎
I must commend the awesome director Biodun Stephen for her Christopher Nolan type train of thought in this truly amazing plot and twist, unfolding slowly, the untold mystery and conspiracy and carefully orchestrated deception of Tobi’s best friend, His Doctor cousin who pretended to be Tobi’s Therapist and her parents who played along.
FREEDOM as a movie attempts to highlight on the untold burden of marriages built on fame and fortune and how innocent women suffer oppression from their powerful and influential husbands.
Men who give you everything and steal everything away from you. It tells the story of love, obsession, domestic violence, revenge and freedom.
The Doctor assured all of them that Tobi would never be able to leave the mental institution ever again as long as he is served on the drugs and sedatives but it gets better. 😎
This is my second most favorite plot of the movie and it unfolded in the near end where a nurse administered certain dosage of drugs to Tobi,
He puts it in his mouth as instructed, drank from a glass of water while acting like a dummy and spread his tongue to confirm he had swallowed.
But soon as the nurse existed the area, he spits the drugs out into a tissue paper. He looks straight into the camera as sane as any man could ever be and said :
I AM COMING FOR YOU !!! 👿
Now that is how you end a movie. Goosebumps. 🥹
UNTAMED
