The Audacity of Happiness: Narrative & Pacing Analysis
Nollywood is often at its most compelling when it tackles social taboos with unrelenting melodrama. The 2025 offering, "OLD AND SWEET," anchors itself in perhaps the most volatile of contemporary African social anxieties: the older woman pursuing a younger man. The film, starring Lilian Afegbai as the widowed mother and Nosa Rex as her energetic, younger paramour, Samson, is not just a romantic drama; it’s a chaotic, often hilarious, but ultimately profound defense of a woman's right to happiness.
The premise is immediate and gripping: a mother's new relationship is discovered by her adult children, triggering an all-out family civil war. This is a story about generational conflict, where the children — Ada, Mike, and Paul — see their mother's relationship as an embarrassing blight on their social standing, while she sees it as a long-overdue reclamation of joy.
Pacing and the Justification of Melodrama
Clocking in at nearly 90 minutes, "OLD AND SWEET" operates at a typically brisk Nollywood pace that nevertheless manages to feel justified in its length because the plot is in constant, frantic motion. The film expertly uses the engine of melodramatic escalation to maintain viewer engagement.
This escalation is structured brilliantly into three phases:
The Discovery and Initial Outrage (The Kiss): This sets the stakes.
The Sabotage Campaigns (The Prophet and the Beating): This introduces the children's desperation and folly.
The Climactic Betrayals (Austin's Failure and Ada's Poison): This forces the characters to confront the true costs of their actions and provides final justification for the mother's choice.
The pacing ensures that just as the audience might tire of the children's constant complaining, a major plot point—like Samson moving into the family home [00:33:56] or the shocking revelation that Mike and Paul are sharing a cheating girlfriend [01:09:05]—re-energizes the conflict. This is melodrama used not as an accident, but as a deliberate narrative mechanism to highlight the children’s profound hypocrisy.
Thematic Core: Autonomy vs. Entitlement
At its heart, "OLD AND SWEET" explores a dichotomy between autonomy and entitlement.
Female Autonomy: The mother's arc is a powerful statement. Her raw, unforgettable moment of defense [00:21:02]—where she challenges her children, arguing that five years of sacrifice entitles her to a man who understands her body—transcends typical Nollywood sentimentality. It is a demand for recognition of her needs and desires, explicitly stating that age is not a boundary to pleasure or partnership.
Generational Hypocrisy: The children, supposedly concerned with their mother's dignity, are revealed to be deeply entitled and morally compromised. They judge their mother for happiness while living chaotic, dishonest, or neglectful lives themselves. The film cleverly uses the children's individual romantic failures—Austin forgetting Ada's birthday [00:45:18] versus Samson's elaborate gifts [00:42:08], and the brothers dating the same woman—as counter-narratives. Their dysfunction serves as the ultimate backdrop against the genuine, albeit unconventional, connection between Samson and the mother.
The Fire Starter and The Iron Lady: Character Deep Dive
The success of the film rests squarely on the shoulders of the two leads and the conviction they bring to their unconventional pairing.
The Mother (Lilian Afegbai): Reclaiming Joy
Lilian Afegbai delivers a nuanced, compelling performance that anchors the emotional weight of the story. Her character is a study in transition. She begins as a standard grieving widow but quickly transforms into a woman liberated by love.
Her dialogue is sharp, particularly when she confronts her children. The scene where she passionately defends Samson, even specifying his ability to find her "G-spot" [00:22:30], is a critical turning point. It is a moment of total, shocking honesty rarely seen in films of this genre, and it immediately shifts the audience's sympathy away from the children. Afegbai portrays her not just as a lover, but as a warrior fighting for her peace, earning the moniker "The Iron Lady" of this domestic battlefield.
Samson (Nosa Rex): Lover Boy or Opportunist?
Nosa Rex's portrayal of Samson is deliberately ambiguous, which is key to the film's tension. The children insist he is a "gold-digger" [01:16:46] and "opportunist." The engineered prompt asked if he is a genuine lover, a gold-digger, or both—and the film expertly keeps this door open.
Samson is indeed a showman, a DJ/promoter, suggesting an inherently opportunistic nature. However, his actions within the relationship tell a different story. He is attentive, constantly giving gifts [00:42:08], remembers her dates, cooks for her [00:46:58], and publicly proposes [01:06:16]. He appears to genuinely cherish her. When he retaliates against the children, his motivation seems less about protecting his wallet and more about protecting his emotional investment. His sincerity, while constantly questioned by the kids, is ultimately validated by the narrative, confirming the mother's intuitive trust in him.
The Hypocrisy of the Heirs: Examining the Children
The children—Ada, Mike, and Paul—function primarily as collective antagonists driven by entitlement.
Ada: As the most prominent challenger, Ada is consumed by judgment and jealousy. Her relationship with Austin (a "successful" banker who forgets her birthday [00:45:18]) is contrasted with her mother’s vibrant love life. Her final, desperate, and near-fatal act of poisoning [01:23:19] crystallizes the dangerous extent of her self-righteous anger. Her character arc serves as a cautionary tale against judging others' happiness while neglecting one's own.
Mike and Paul: The brothers initially support Ada, but their moral credibility is obliterated by the reveal of their shared girlfriend, Trisha [01:10:08]. This plot device is a stroke of genius, completely neutering their high-horse critique of their mother. It forces them—and the audience—to acknowledge the profound hypocrisy of their moral stance. They are more concerned with appearances than with genuine morality.
These characters are not intended to be sympathetic; they are reflections of the societal pressures and entitled expectations placed upon successful middle-class Nigerian families. Their collective judgment is the mountain the mother must climb to achieve her personal freedom.
Beyond the Juju: Social Commentary and Cultural Tropes
"OLD AND SWEET" deserves significant praise for how it subverts traditional Nollywood tropes to deliver a modern social commentary.
The Age-Gap Trope: Validation, Not Condemnation
In African cinema, the older woman/younger man pairing is almost universally framed as tragic, predatory, or destined to fail due to societal disapproval or the man's greed. This film breaks that mould. While the children believe Samson is merely using their mother, the narrative emphatically validates the mother's choice. It subtly argues that love, pleasure, and connection are not bound by patriarchal timelines. It’s a powerful validation of female sexual agency in a cultural context that frequently denies it.
The Satire of the Spiritual (The Juju Plot)
The children, unable to process their mother’s happiness through normal means, resort to the popular Nollywood trope of the "juju" or "jazz" spell [00:53:34]. They hire a prophet, who is later revealed to be completely useless, focused only on money and 21-day fasts [01:04:12].
This entire subplot is brilliant satire. The prophet eventually declares that he sees "true love" and "no demons" [01:07:40]. The film uses the common anxiety around spiritual manipulation not to confirm it, but to ridicule the skeptics. It's a statement: the only "spell" Samson cast was consistent attention and genuine affection, something the mother's husband-age peers failed to provide.
Production Coherence
The production quality is crisp, maintaining the contemporary Nollywood standard. While the cinematography isn't revolutionary, the dialogue is punchy, and the scene transitions—especially those dedicated to the numerous dramatic confrontations—are effective. The director keeps a tight rein on the emotional chaos, ensuring the story remains focused on its central theme: the mother's journey to self-determination.
An Earned Victory and Final Verdict
The film culminates not in a dramatic, forced separation, but in a quiet, earned victory. The family's sudden, inevitable acceptance after the poisoning incident feels slightly rushed as a cinematic beat, but it is necessary for the final thematic resolution. It takes the prospect of loss for the children to realize their judgment was far more destructive than their mother’s happiness.
The film's ultimate message is clear: Happiness cannot be policed by entitlement or generational expectations. The mother's triumph is a victory for every woman who has felt obligated to diminish her life post-widowhood or divorce. It argues that a woman's emotional and sexual needs do not expire, and that finding love—even the unconventional kind—is a right, not a privilege.
"OLD AND SWEET" is a surprisingly poignant social commentary wrapped in a high-octane family melodrama. It's essential viewing for its bold thematic stance and Lilian Afegbai’s career-defining performance.
My Rating: ..........................4.5 / 5 Stars
Call to Watch: If you appreciate Nollywood at its most audacious—tackling cultural taboos with emotional honesty and a wicked sense of irony—"OLD AND SWEET" is a must-watch. Grab your friends, prepare to be shocked, and let the conversation about female autonomy begin!
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