Review: ‘Namaste Wahala’

If there is any genre synonymous with Nollywood filmmaking, it is the romantic comedy. From EbonyLife’s The Wedding Party, and its poorly executed sequel, to the relatively progressive Isoken, Nollywood has churned out film after film about romance in a society that is fixated on marriage as a status symbol and an achievement – especially for women. Now, imagine pairing that with Bollywood’s equal fixation on marriage and their elaborate song and dance routines, the result is the daring crossover that is Namaste Wahala which roughly translates to “Hello Trouble”. 

A Netflix release directed by first time director Hamisha Daryani Ahuja (who also has a role in the movie as Leila, Didi’s friend) Namaste Wahala is a film that follows the story of two lovers, Didi (played by Nigerian TV darling, Ini Dima-Okojie), a lawyer who works for a nonprofit against her father’s will and Raj (played by Bollywood actor Ruslaan Mumtaz), an Indian investment banker living in Lagos, who try to convince their parents that love is beyond borders and cultures – or at least that’s what the film is trying to do. This is an idea that is supposed to work in theory, since there is already a deep connection to Bollywood cinema in Nigeria and a film bringing both cultures together is expected to be groundbreaking even to the point of genre-bending, but Namaste Wahala fails at bringing any nuance or newness to the tired Nollywood romcom scene. If anything, it is a regressive take on the genre with glaring sexist scenes, exaggerated acting, stented dialogue, and chaotic directing.

The film kicks off with both leads bumping into each other at the beach on a morning jog in one of the most chemistry-starved scenes I have seen in recent times. They look into each other’s eyes for an extended period until they are interrupted by Raj’s best friend, Emma (played by Koye Ekun) with a music career and music we never hear, who is supposed to serve as some comic relief for the film but ends up delivering unfunny lines of dialogue with over-the-top acting. After a few scenes – one of which involves Raj, at a fundraiser, blatantly telling Didi that he was going to marry her – we are then thrown into a song and dance scene where the two leads are already in love. There is no backstory to their romance, not even a montage of dates and moments that would make one more invested in this love story, we are just plunged straight into a love we have no attachment to between two people who look like they don’t even believe they are in love.

There is a scene where Raj meets Didi’s father (played by Richard Mofe Damijo in a reiteration of his Wedding Party role) riddled with sexism (he says that he will hand his legacy to Didi’s husband like a daughter is not a worthy offspring) and melodramatic music that is forcing us to feel sorry for them. Then we are introduced to Raj’s mother, Meena (played by Sujata Sehgal) who just arrived in Lagos and is arguing with a taxi driver played by Broda Shaggi. He brings his sketch comedy character to this unnecessarily lengthy scene that tries and fails to bring cross-cultural comic relief but ends up making one look away in second-hand embarrassment.

While this unconvincing love story goes on, there is a subplot where Didi is representing a victim of domestic violence who was abused by a man represented by her father. One would expect this to explore some familial conflict and how systems and privilege enable abusers, but we are left with a caricature of a case with storytelling inconsistencies and disjointed scenes that do nothing to propel the plot. In a bid to tackle a serious issue, this subplot ends up making the movie hold up even less and creates a redemption for Didi’s father he does not deserve.

A lot of archaic and even misogynistic tropes abound in this film. From Didi and Raj’s mother starting a food competition for Raj’s attention like a woman’s worth lies in cooking, to Didi’s mother (played by the veteran Joke Silva) running into Didi’s best friend during a sexual escapade and telling her that “nobody buys the cow if they can get the milk for free” – an utterly horrible line that needs no explaining. Also, Raj’s mother slut-shaming Didi for staying at Raj’s house, and Leila finally trying to win over Raj’s mum by telling her that Nigerian women haven’t lost the fact that they can make homes for their husbands. These scenes do the already struggling film no favours and play to stereotypes that women have been rejecting for hundreds of years.

There are a lot of arguments about the rom-com genre being tired and cliché and while I do not agree with them, Namaste Wahala does the genre no favours especially in the Nollywood industry. A lot of reactions to this film have focused on representation and while it is good to see people who look like you on screen, it would be disingenuous to say that every representation is good representation. Both cultures need films that create appealingly complex characters and stories and, unfortunately, Namaste Wahala, with its glaring and unskilled product placement, left me bored, confused, slightly angered, and wondering what the food combination on the wedding menu in the last scene would taste like.