When I heard ELEVATOR BABY as the title of a Nigerian movie, my first prediction of the movie was a guy meeting a lady in an elevator, lo and behold I was pleasantly surprised as I watched the movie only to find out that I was wrong.

First scene revealed a group of young adults frolicking in the club, scenes were switched to a troubled mother and her husband who were anxiously waiting for her son who is still out late in the night and ignoring her consistent phone calls. Back at the club, we soon got to know that Dare Williams is the only son of the woman we saw earlier. Dare Williams got embarrassed at the club because he had insufficient funds in his bank account to pay his bills and his broke-ass friends couldn’t help him.

You would think he will go home to his anxious mother; rather, he went to Nana, his intended girlfriend. He made an attempt to borrow some money from her, rather he passed out and spent the night in her house. The following morning, our protagonist was seen at his house yelling at his Mum for not funding his bank account and thereby embarrassing him. This particular scene is intriguing so, let’s talk a little about it.

First, the way Nana unexpectedly cut in to say “He was at my place Ma” when Dare’s mum asked Dare where he had been all night. Nana’s act of trying to cover up for Dare depicted loyalty but Dare didn’t let it stand as he washed Nana’s loyalty with an I don’t care attitude as he later revealed that he was at the club. This served as a hint, don’t cover up people’s sins with lies even if you are trying to be loyal to them, the table can easily be turned against you.

Another remarkable feature of this movie is the Nigerianness of the movie. Mrs. Williams’ act of codeswitching from Yoruba and English languages in her expression and more importantly the flow of emotion in this scene reflects motherhood and the pains of an unhappy Nigerian Mother. For instance, when Dare got to the peak of provocating his mother, Dare’s mother responded with a slap on her son’s face and at that moment, absolutely everything went silent. The Mother’s facial expression, cries and words of deep hurt and bitterness following her son’s provocation was so deep that you could feel her hurt.

The saying ‘’bad boys want good girls’’ is so obvious with Dare’s dealings with Nana. He respects her enough to keep his smoking habits from her. One can deduce that Nana is the right lady for a guy like Dare, a lady that can be firm enough not to tolerate his reckless lifestyle.

Dare’s episode of challenges started with being dismembered from his broke-ass friends and his inability to find a job because he lacks experience. Still on his job searching plight, fresh looking Dare got into an elevator and while I was expecting him to be joined by a Mammy water lookalike lady, he was joined in the elevator by a heavily pregnant, tired and poor woman who accidentally spilled Coke on Dare, our fresh looking guy who was going for another job interview.

As fate would have it, Dare and the pregnant woman on their way out of the building jammed again at the elevator and there was a power outage that got them indefinitely stuck inside the elevator. Efforts to switch on the backup generator proved abortive while the unfriendly elevator occupants took off their quarrel from where they left it.

The part that got me smiling in this scene was Dare’s bleak attempt to speak Yoruba with the woman who wouldn’t stop raining curses at him. The pregnant woman soon began to have contractions, unexpectantly, her water broke, leaving Dare more agitated and screaming for help to the ears of no one.

No one realized that they were stuck in the elevator until Abigail’s madam whom Abigail came to see in her office arrived and the search for the elevator captors began.  Dare’s effort to reach his contacts for help also proved abortive until he could reach Nana who didn’t believe him at first.

In the midst of all these, the previous enemies introduced themselves and something that got me smiling again was the way Abigail introduced herself with the Jenifa’s swag ‘My name is Abigail’.

The confession episode that happened in the elevator was unexpected especially to Mrs. Njoku, Abigail’s Madam who initiated the search for Abigail and Dare. Mrs Njoku left the scene immediately as she heard Abigail’s confession which claimed that Mr. Njoku, (Madam’s husband) is the father of her expected child. Meanwhile, Nana had called Dare’s mum who in turn called her husband, Dr Ajibade to help guide Dare in dealing with the pregnant woman as this could be the window to make Dare change his mind about him.

Doctor Ajibade reached out to Dare and guided him to help Abigail in the delivery of the expected baby even as Dare himself was struggling to stay sane and unconfused. The news of a guy and a pregnant woman stuck in an elevator became viral on social media through the office receptionist.

Dare courageously took up the responsibility of delivering Abigail’s baby. A part of this scene that got me smiling was the way Abigail took off her pant to enable Dare act as directed by the Doctor. Dare’s short prayers as he was about to start the delivery process with Abigail was also hilarious. When the process got tough and Dare was about giving up, Nana’s reassuring words motivated him to keep going with the delivery process.

Eventually, Dare helped Abigail in the delivery of a boy child. Then in the span of a minute of relief, the mother realized that the baby didn’t cry as one would expect. Again, Doctor Ajibade guided Dare to start compression for the baby while Abigail began another round of confession saying that God seems to be punishing her because this is her second child who is about to die after the first child she had for madam’s husband died after birth. She also added she had been having sex with the madam’s husband for 6 years on his matrimonial bed.

The doctor had to board a motorcycle to escape Lagos traffic. He arrived to the emergency scene to take over in helping the child stay alive and the ambulance joined afterwards to take both mother and child to the hospital. Dare’s friends paid the debt of 75k that was incurred at the club to retrieve his staff that was earlier seized at the club. He was pleasantly surprised and his friendship with his guys was renewed.

The last act in the movie was at the hospital where both mother and child were being taken care of and Dare came to visit. Abigail thanked Dare for his help during the child’s delivery as she tagged him as the Elevator Doctor and Doctor Ajibade as the Hospital Doctor while the Elevator Baby was named after Elevator Doctor, Damilare.

Both Elevator Doctor, Step-Son and Hospital Doctor, Step-Father called it a truce to begin a cordial relationship. Of course, without further wooing, Nana beautifully agreed to date Dare because his actions as the Elevator Doctor had proven him worthy.

Elevator Baby is a Nigerian movie that I’m proud to relate with it as a Nigerian and I would recommend you watch the movie that trod the rare story line.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend! Je t’aime mon ami!