Hi guys, I wrote this review of The Figurine for something I was doing and I thought I’d share with you guys. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, maybe it’ll get you to see it and if you’ve already seen it, maybe you can agree with me and it’ll get you to see it again.
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The Figurine is a Nigerian thriller released in 2009. It was written by Kemi Adesoye and produced and directed by Kunle Afolayan. At the 2010 African Movie Academy Awards, The Figurine was nominated for 10 awards and walked away with 5 awards under its belt.
The movie tells the story of Femi(Ramsey Noah), Sola(Kunle Afolayan) and Mona(Omoni Oboli) who have been posted to Araromire,an ancient village named after a deity which is a figurine carved from a cursed tree, for their National Youth Service Corps. The figurine brings good fortune for 7 years followed by 7 years of calamity, destruction and bad luck to anyone who touches it. Femi and Sola are best friends while Mona is Sola’s girlfriend who Femi is in love with and plans to propose to at their NYSC camp. Femi and Sola discover the figurine of the goddess Araromire in a shrine near their camp and despite Femi’s warnings, Sola takes it home with him. To Femi’s dismay, Sola marries Mona. Life after camp for them is followed by 7 years of goodluck, wealth, health and happiness. Suddenly, things start to turn around for the worse and they begin to link it all to the figurine and the legend of its powers. They try to get rid of the figurine but it keeps coming back. Just when it’s too late, they discover that it was all the doing of Femi in a bid to win Mona back. Or is it? The movie ends leaving the viewers to make of it what they will.
The figurine shows the lengths people will go to and how much people will sacrifice for love as shown in the way Femi did everything he possibly could and threw caution to the wind just to be with Mona.
It is not a typical Nollywood movie. The story is fantastic and it leaves you guessing and wanting more.
There could not have been a more perfect cast. I have never seen Ramsey Noah act better; he was believable and he captured all of my attention. Omoni Oboli interpreted the role beautifully; when she laughed, I believed her, when she cried, I felt the emotion.
This movie is a win for Nollywood and is definitely of international quality. The picture quality is great and I absolutely loved the soundtrack( it was stuck in my head for weeks).
It shows the rest of Africa and the world how Nigeria is in terms of our culture,society and beliefs. For example, it mixes pidgin English, spoken widely in Nigeria,with Yoruba and English. It also shows how much belief Nigerians have in the supernatural and how much they accredit to it.
It mirrors Nigeria in many ways and does not hide the bad parts. For example, it highlights bribery.
I love how the movie ends with a question; “what do you believe?”. It gives you the license to make the ending you want.
I definitely believe it was all the doing of Araromire.
Aside from a minor problem with the subtitles, which may just be a problem with the copy I watched, this is by far one of my best Nollywood movies.
The Figurine is absolutely a must-see!
Jennifer Abah
Jennifer Abah 
Maybe we watched different movies titled “the figurine” cos the one I watched wasn’t all the things you listed. Here’s the thing, the soundtrack was great, that “Araromire” with traditional beats and instruments got stuck in my head as well, the cinematography was okay but could have been better, some shots were rather overused, like that particular scene where the sister keeps looking up. Now the story you say was fantastic and left you wanting more, it left me begging for the movie to end. The story was very inconsistent, no particular flow of events, it almost makes no sense from a lgocial point of view, its like a buffet where you bring in various scenes from different movies, the only thing linking is that the scenes are in the same movie. I’m not even going to go into the acting, pitiful at its best. Honestly I was quite disappointed, I heard a review quite similar to yours prior to watching the movie, so you can understand how excited I was to finally watch a top notch nollywood movie, only to watch that, waste of time
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You’re the first person I’ve come across who doesn’t like the movie. I thought it was great though especially in comparison to other crappy Nollywood movies. But then in the end that’s my opinion and it’s left for the readers to watch the movie and form theirs so I’m glad you did that. And maybe someone else who reads this will share your sentiment or it’ll get someone to watch the movie not from a one sided point of view. Thanks for stopping by and dropping a comment.
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Well, I suppose everyone is entitled to their opinion but I reckon why most people “claim” to like the movie was due to the hype surrounding it, it was touted as the best as at then and not most people have the nerve to speak against what’s seemingly “cool”. Admittedly it was a step up from the usual nollywood movies, the idea I think was a good one, just the execution wasn’t that great. Its not a bad movie in all really, I just watch a lot of hollywood and that has upped my expectations.
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My like for the movie was independent of the hype but I do see what you mean
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