A Naija Christmas is a Christmas comedy new to Netflix and the first of its kind in Nigeria. It stars the late Rachel Oniga, Alvin Abayomi, Kunle Remi and Efa Iwara, and produced by Kunle Afolayan.
The Plot
Despite her health issues, what matters most to Mama, the mother of Ugo, Obi and Chike, is that her sons come home with wives-to-be for Christmas. She gives all three of them this task and promises to reward the first son to bring a wife ownership to her house where they all grew up in.
This incentive makes the eldest son, Ugo, try by all means to get involved in a serious relationship as he intends to get the house and sell it off to pay his debts. His brothers do not care so much about the house but they did care about making their mum happy by bringing a woman home.
Obi the nerd gets rejected by his girlfriend/boss after he made a public proposal, Chike is dating an unknown woman that seems unlikely to lead to marriage and Ugo's strategy to get a decent girl his mum likes proves harder than he imagined.
Who will come home with a wife first for Christmas? I'd leave you to find out.
My Thoughts
The Christmas setting of the movie was the glue holding everything together. I loved the carols, especially the songs done in the Yoruba language.
I was really impressed by the props and I kept saying only a producer like Kunle Afolayan does well with props in Nigerian movies. I wasn't surprised to see his name in the closing credits as the producer. Attention was paid to details as it should be unlike average Nigerian movies and I really appreciated that.
Now for the story itself, it was all over the place and didn't hold my attention for long. As earlier said, the Christmas setting held this scattered plot together even if it was at the very end of the movie. It's a familiar rinsed-out Hollywood plot but what makes this interesting is the Nigerian flavour added to it.
The actors delivered their roles excellently and Rachel Oniga (God bless her soul) was pretty much a typical Nigerian mum in all ramifications in this movie.
It was a bit funny, my favorite scenes where the ones where Kunle Remi (Ugo) kept making the Vera...Vera...era jokes on his brother and also the one where he was invited for an all-nighter and he was shocked to find out it was a prayer night and not clubbing.
Two hours was one hour too long for this movie, I believe it could have been shorter and held my attention span a bit more.
It explores themes of classism and faith in Nigeria as well as love. It's this love that shines through and makes it a wholesome watch for the entire family.
It's a 7/10 for me and I'd recommend it.
Seen it? What do you think about it?
Discord - wolfofnostreet#4939