The Nigerian movie "Heaven Sent" weaves a tale of fate, fortune, and the consequences of tampering with the mystical. The plot revolves around two friends who, while serving at a National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) camp, stumble upon a mystical sculpture in an abandoned forest shrine. One of them decides to bring the artwork home, unaware of its significance.
Unknown to them, the sculpture is from the Yoruba goddess Araromire, which bestows seven years of good luck on anyone who encounters it, and after the seven years have expired, seven years of bad luck follow. The lives of the two friends begin to change for good, as they become successful and wealthy businessmen.
NYSC Uniform
The Narrative Structure
The writer of the script, Kemi Adesoye, employs a balance, imbalance, and balance method.
- First Balance: The film opens with a compelling introduction, narrating the origin of the Araromire sculpture. This provides the viewer with a clear understanding of the movie's central theme.
- Imbalance: The chaos begins when everything that was said of Araromire starts to manifest after the 7 years of abundance. This leads to 7 years of destruction where everything starts going wrong.
- Final Balance: The characters seek resolution for the problems, leading to a suspenseful, mysterious, and unpredictable climax.
Strengths and Weaknesses
While the movie has its strengths, it also presents certain weaknesses that can be improved upon.
Read also: Villa Heaven on Earth: A Detailed Look
Commendable Aspects
- The scenes shot in the youth service camp were commendable and seemed very real.
- The picture quality was sharp and professional.
- Selective focus technique was used to blur the vision of people in the background so that the camera would be focused on the particular characters of that scene. An example can be seen in Femi’s welcome party.
- The music director, Eilam Hoffman, did a fantastic job with song compositions and the sound tracks.
- Omoni Oboli was the star of the movie as she played her role and portrayed her character magnificently.
- Ramsey Noah also did well even when the character he was given did not suit him but his professionalism in interpreting roles would make one overlook it.
- Kunle Afolayan was on an average scale and showed be applauded for the way he portrayed his role in an English movie being that his comfort zone was on the Yoruba movies. Not all actors can pull that off.
Areas for Improvement
- The sound quality of the movie was not excellent.
- Much time was wasted in the golf course scene.
- The makeup of Ramsey Noah was faulty; in a quest to make him look young, they made him look fake and really funny with the weird hairstyle.
- The amount of people who participated in the burn fire night were very few compared to the population that was seen during the orientation in camp. Graduates who have experienced what an NYSC orientation camp looks like would disagree with this scene in respect to how scanty it was.
- When Lara was thrown out of the house by Muna and her friend, one would have wondered why her box was open.
- Shola played by Kunle Afolayan made it too obvious that he was playing the bad boy role by working too hard to depict it.
- Again the scene where Femi brought his girlfriend home and was seen by his father was exaggerated and misconstrued.
- Jide Kosoko who played the role of the chairman of the company Femi works for was like undermining to his personality. One would expect that a popular actor like Jide would be given a role where he would have to feature more than twice in a movie.
- Muraina Oyelami’s scenes makes one want to fast forward the movie. Thank God she did not feature in so much scenes as she was flat although.
- On the other hand Funlola Aofiyebi really tried as the hyper friend character but would still have pulled it off being a professional, without rolling her eye balls like it was going to pop out of its socket and her excessive gesticulations were becoming really tiring.
The movie had some weaknesses from cast performances, costume, make up, and other technicalities. A typical Yoruba man will not stand and watch his son play love games with a woman he is not married to and just smile the way Femi’s father did in that scene. He even went as far as encouraging them to continue. Kayode Adeleke and Steve Sodiya did very well in the editing of the movie.
| Aspect | Positive | Negative |
|---|---|---|
| Acting | Omoni Oboli's performance, Ramsey Noah's professionalism, Kunle Afolayan's portrayal | Exaggerated scenes, underutilized actors, Muraina Oyelami's flat performance |
| Technical | Sharp picture quality, selective focus, good music | Poor sound quality, faulty makeup, continuity issues |
| Story | Engaging plot, clear narrative structure | Wasted scenes, overdone character portrayals |
MADE IN HEAVEN - RAY EMODI, AHNEEKA, OLUCHI NWABUZUOR, PRINCE NWAFOR, BLOSSOM OKPALEKE, 2025 Movie
Though this movie had flaws but it cannot deny the fact that the movie was an improvement in the Nigerian movie industry if today. The Figurine is heaven sent to Nollywood to redeem its lost glory. All thanks to the promising Director cum Producer Kunle Afolayan who has reminded Nigerians of how better we can become with this sensational movie.
Read also: Atlanta Nigerian Passport Services
Read also: Experience Fad's Fine African Cuisine
