2013 was a great year for film but only after three months, this year is promising to raise the bar even higher; form Dilman Dila’s AMVCA nominated Felista’s Fable to Robin Kisti’s produced Basket 53, 2014 is indeed on a faster rollercoaster.
Last week, another mileage was reached when a fast rising movie director Hussein Omar premiered a ground breaking romantic drama that educates lovers on how to achieve an everlasting relationship.
The film aptly titled The Counselor premiered at National Theatre to a respectable number of audiences even when the event had only relied on social media for promotional purposes.
The red carpet launch kicked off with a cocktail where free drinks and snacks were served. The host for the night also a film maker and director of the famous human trafficking thriller The Route, Jayant Maru was very engaging; asking the cast to act out some scenes from the movie before it could start.
Then saxophonist Michael Kitanda’s rendition of Kenny G’s Going home – mind blowing and fit for the elegance that premieres are known for.
At about 7:25, The Counselor was unleashed and unlike many local movies were introductory credits take almost five of your precious minutes, this one is rather quick. The film introduces us to Bob (Nicholas Kayiwa)a trained counselor that is more interested in business, when he loses his job, his grounded as he changes roles to becoming a stay home husband waiting on his wife Suzan (Miriam Kubita)’s mercy.
But she’s never easy, she’s always reminding him that he has to find a job; in fact he ends up taking up a counselor job after Suzan went around telling her and his friends about his situation.
Fighting to impress, Bob gives all to the job, working late, meeting clients in rather unconventional places which include romantic dates late in the evening with one of them, this in turn pits his own
The more Bob struggles to fix other marriages is the more he’s denting his, Suzan suspects he may be seeing a client, Rose (Esther Bwanika), the allegation is fueled by her husband (Christopher Lwandaga) who sees them having a drink at the restaurant.
At the peak of everything, Bob loses this job and best friend over a number of allegations and has to turn to his wife to help him get it back.
The movie is so relevant to the current ugandan situation where marriages have become try outs, the only problem is that the characters over use the services of couselors which is not that realistic in our society – the example of the husband who has issues of his wife gaining some extra pounds! A typical Ugandan man just cheats.
The acting was prolific considering the fact that some of the cast members like Jolly Kisakye were first timers, nevertheless, others like Kubita and one Cate Ayella had some memorable time in the movie.
The biggest problem Omar must have faced may have been a tight budget that didn’t give him a chance to exploit some techniques, its said that some shoots had to be foregone since they would have been too expensive, this came out to haunt the final product especially when they kept showing Bob’s home and the office whenever there was a transition, then none of the supporting characters had a back story besides the lead.
But all in all, The Couselor is a good movie and probably a must watch for those in commited relationships.
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