There’s a scene in Water & Garri where an older woman serves a little girl garri. She uses a tablespoon to scoop this staple from a container into a ceramic plate all the while telling the child an anecdote about how although raw garri may be too harsh and dry, a little water and sugar does all the magic to make it edible and bearable to eat. As she speaks, she demonstrates this by adding water to the scooped cereal to form a mixture, before going on about how life can be difficult, and harsh but also beautiful, and sweet. It is at this point she introduces a little sugar into the mixture. Up to this point, I’d been straddling along, watching with keen interest for when this film would finally start to pay back the attention I’d invested in it so far. At this point, I also realized that I was at the 55-minute mark of an 80-minute film, well into two-thirds of the movie, yet could barely make heads or tail what the narrative was really about.

The child, a young Aisha, may have needed a little sugar to get through that plate of garri from her grandmother, but I knew I’d need a whole lot more than I first thought to get through the rest of this movie.

Water & Garri is many things, at least it tries to be. At its core, it’s the story of Aisha, a fashion designer, played by Tiwa Savage, who returns to Eastside, a fictional location, after 10 years away in the United States. At home, violence has escalated and tensions are high. As she reconnects with loved ones, she must learn to live with her scars and confront the guilt she left behind. Like many movies, Water & Garri stays ambitious and aims to achieve a lot. It caresses important topics —the futility of gangster life; loss and grief; to a home being where the heart is, and the effects of the japa fever on the minds of those who leave and the effect of those left behind, are some of the biggest ones it tries to address. It shows signs of shooting for the sky, but all that charm wears off somewhere before the 10-minute mark when the first wave of confusion hits the audience. I do admire its ambition to reach lofty heights with the power of a visual medium, but it is that same ambition that almost drowns it on the altar of poor execution.

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Water & Garri falters in a lot of the great things it tries to do, primarily because of a lack of coherent storytelling, clear directorial vision, lack of chemistry between its two romantic leads, poor character development, and unconvincing performances from a lot of the cast members. The latter is so bad that even actors like Mike Afolarin and Jemima Osunde who are typically known for good performances in anything they’re in look to be fighting for their lives here.

Meji Alabi, known for his string of successful music videos, sits in the director’s chair of Water & Garri for his directorial feature film debut. Alabi experiences some level of struggle here. Many of the stylistic choices that make up the film’s visual elements lend credence to his vast experience shooting short form [music] videos and commercials; you see it in almost every frame, stunning; but a lot of the other things about the vision of a storyboard brought to life to make a feature film, including but not limited to how below par the performances of a lot of the actors are, tell us of his lack of experience, or more accurately, his struggles with bringing this particular project to life.

Water & Garri isn't without its bright spots. I love the songs that made up the soundtrack. They were good and mostly fitting for the scenes they were used. A little digging into how this project came to be helps to explain why the soundtrack was so good, apart from the obvious fact that this movie has one of the biggest Afrobeat music stars on the planet at the helm of affairs. The initial plan was to create visuals for a two-part EP for Tiwa Savage also titled Water & Garri. That simple idea soon morphed into the behemoth that is this 80-minute film when Savage and Meji Alabi, a long-time collaborator of the superstar, started to think bigger. The songs are clearly intentional pieces of work and are easily the biggest highlight of this film project. The second would be Tiwa Savage’s on-screen relationship with Jemima Osunde, who plays her cousin Stephany. I thought their relationship was cute and found myself looking forward to more appearances from the duo, which wasn’t a lot.

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Occasionally, signs of a story with potential rears its head amidst the pile of rubbles that is Water & Garri. I see crumbs of the vision they were most likely going for littered throughout its run-time. Like a phoenix, it makes multiple attempts to rise now and then; alas, the rubbles surrounding it prove too difficult to surmount. Pivotal changes begging to be made. This makes me think that maybe in the hands of a better-equipped director and a stronger cast, the weak screenplay and its bland characters may have had a shot at a better life on screen. Throw in a much-needed rewrite that intelligently places setups and payoffs to clear out a lot of the confusion viewers were left with, and you might just be staring at a masterpiece.

Water & Garri needed a lot more sugar than it got. Sadly, like a garri mixture already left to settle in one’s belly, nothing can reach it now. It’s gone.

PS: Water & Garri is better on a second watch. But then, if someone needs to see your movie twice to get the full experience, that’s a sign that something is wrong.

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Rinzy’s Rating: 2/5

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