Palava - Family Fool
Thoughts On: Palava (2022)
An aging singer's life hangs in the balance of the women he clings to.
Money solves all problems I suppose. Palava is foolish, but slightly entertaining. It circles around a musician who keeps ruining his career for the women. He is 60 with 5 daughters by 5 different women, has a new son with a plotting gold-digging mother trying to strongarm her way into the family, and still schemes to get his last wife that left him for his manager - all while his daughters try to push his career and get them bags of naira. There's no honour and no lack of shamelessness about the characters, but they have a sense of family; their only saving grace. As ridiculous as the story becomes, it sustains this basic notion of familial togetherness that, as childish as everyone behaves, saves them from even the most profound levels of stupidity. I would have liked to have seen more passion and intensity in the tone of Palava; the pacing could have also been cranked up a little to make things more engaging. But, as is, this was a pleasant enough dip back into Nigerian cinema, but nothing too remarkable.
