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So, I just finished watching the new Kenyan highly anticipated movie, 'Sincerely Daisy' which happens to be the first Kenyan film on Netflix. This is a huge milestone for our country and our film industry as well. However I have a couple of rants that I'd like to get off my chest
In any art form, there's the technical aspect and then there's the artistic/creative aspect of it. Anybody pursuing the arts knows this too well and spends a significant portion of their lives working their butt off to harness these two aspects.
For 'Sincerely Daisy', they definitely achieved the technical milestones that any film aspires to achieve. The quality was superb; the lighting, the sound, the video resolution, the fantastic shots just to mention a few. That is indeed Netflix material.
However, as for the creative and artistic bit, I particularly wasn't convinced. This is the important aspect of the film. It's where the movie communicates it's message, and I don't believe that this was well executed here.
It's sad for me to be admitting this because I am a Kenyan and I should be excited for it and support it. Besides, I am also somehow indirectly affiliated with our film industry. However, this is unfortunately not the case with this movie. Here's why;
Spoiler Alert!
1. You can already predict the antagonist of the film, Amina, and how she is going to steal Daisy's role and boyfriend right at the beginning of the film. This demistyfies the plot right away and therefore isn't as captivating afterwards.
1. You can already predict the antagonist of the film, Amina, and how she is going to steal Daisy's role and boyfriend right at the beginning of the film. This demistyfies the plot right away and therefore isn't as captivating afterwards.
2. The bar is set so high for the film right away for Daisy with everything going perfectly for her, that you can almost instantly predict that this film is going to be about how life is not as flowery as she thought.
3. The director of the play here overdid his mean character, till he did not even seem mean anymore. He just seemed ridiculously stupid
.In real life no one would take such a person seriously by any means, yet here, he was the guy calling the shots for these actors.
.In real life no one would take such a person seriously by any means, yet here, he was the guy calling the shots for these actors.
4. Daisy's Dad could literally give less fucks about anything im thisbworld. We weren't even told of why he couldn't sell his land, and how eventually sold it.
We weren't even told of why he couldn't sell his land, and how eventually sold it.
Despite him having trouble selling the land for 2 years, he somehow miraculously found a way to sell it at the end of the movie, for no mentioned reason, so that she could pay for Daisy to pursue her dream, so that she could eventually have her happy ending in the movie??
5. I just could have an empathetic connection with the characters. Movies are meant to make you empathize with the character' emotions and also to make you imagine yourself in their situations. This movie just did not achieve that.
6. Alot of the acting felt theatrical and melodramatic. The conversations didn't feel natural. These are good actors no doubt, but that was the issue. It felt like acting. People anticipating each other's lines, and acting like they would in a play.
7. There were abit too many unnecessary emotional moments. Out of the blue, in the midst of dramatic and chaotic moments, scenes would just appear with people prophessing their love for one another for no apparent reason. These felt too out of place.
8. Some scenes were just irrelevant and/or redundant. At many points, the movie felt too stagnant
9. Mbeki Mwalimu is a phenomenal actor, but she totally butchered the 'harsh mom' role here.
10. Last but not least, Collins. Why in the flying fuck did they have to portray the boyfriend as a loving, charming and nice guy only for him to be unleashed as a lying, cheating, aggressive jerk who was only after sex? What the fuck? Why did this agenda have to be pushed here?
Movies are very essential in passing a message to society and basically at the end, all this movie was screaming is "MEN ARE DOGS!" Why did Collins have to be so desperate at the end licking her ass for her forgiveness despite what he did? Stereotypical dogshit right there.
Like I said, I am proud of the achievement this movie made but I am not proud of how it was executed. I honestly would think hard before recommending this movie to someone because as much as I'd like to promote Kenyan content, I hate sharing something that is distasteful.
These are just my opinions which I decided to voice over here. This movie despite its bottlenecks, signifies promise for Kenyan films in the future. It just failed to match up to its hype.
I am yet to see a better Kenyan movie than Nairobi Half Life, even though it was produced by a German film company. Where does that leave us Kenyans?
