‘The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives’ Review: A Twisty Nigerian Melodrama That Could Use More Mischief

One of three Nigerian films playing at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, “The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives” immediately throws the audience into the central dilemma of its plotty narrative. In the first scene, post copulation, Baga Segi (Odunlade Adekola) demands that his fourth and youngest wife Bolanle (Omowunmi Dada) see someone about being infertile: It’s been a couple of years since their marriage and they remain childless. From here on, filmmaker Daniel Oriahi uses voiceover and flashbacks to reveal how Bolanle arrived at this moment.

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This is a melodrama of malicious secrets and manipulative lies that may lead to divorce, desertion and even death. If only it committed to its heightened register instead of trying to deliver a moral, almost biblical, lesson. The screenplay, adapted from Lola Shoneyin’s novel by Oriahi alongside Adze Ugah, Mo Abudu and Heidi Uys, has many themes on its mind — among them, suffocating patriarchy, gender-based societal hypocrisy, and women’s sexual pleasure (or lack thereof) in traditional Nigerian marriages.

Bolanle joins a household of three wives and their many children. First there’s Iya Segi (Iyabo Ojo), the authority in the house, to whom everyone except the patriarch must bow; the other women must seek her approval for their wants and needs. Second wife Iya Tope (Mercy Aigbe) is kinder and seems mostly concerned with the wellbeing of her daughters; the film and Aigbe’s performance present her as intellectually disabled, playing into the familiar “holy fool” trope. Meanwhile, third wife Iya Femi (Bimbo Ademoye) is the most cunning and ruthless in trying to defend her position within the household, playing up to Iya Segi’s schemes as her most willing conspirator. 

All three are immediately threatened when Baba Segi marries Bolanle, and together, they plot a series of incidents to diminish her position. Bolanle rises above it all, taking the moral high road every time. As the film keeps reminding us, she’s the most educated of the wives — a university graduate — which undermines the others’ naturally cunning ways. Still, their outlandish schemes provide levity, pushing “The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives” into welcome comic territory. Toward the end of the film, many walls of secrets come crashing down — some inexplicably so, through unprompted confessions. Those scenes play as if the screenwriters gave up on trying to resolve the twisty plot, instead just making their characters tell all, leaving the film’s denouement much less engrossing than its setup. 

Like the drama, the performances are heightened. At first, the three first wives appear as a sort of Greek chorus, commenting on the actions of Bolanle’s lead character. Slowly, each of their tragic stories is revealed, giving Ojo, Aigbe and Ademoye more shades to play. But they’re at their best in non-verbal scenes, with their exaggerated facial reactions to the action unspooling around them. Particularly humorous is the way they react in almost orchestrated unison at Bolanle’s wedding. In contrast, Dada is the straight woman: That her character is more realistic makes her performance more grounded, if a tad dull. As the film centers her point of view, she’s the only character keeping no secrets from the audience.

Oriahi has a solid handle on all craft aspects, though only the costumes by Yolanda Okereke are particularly distinguishable — her color stories popping in almost every scene. The first three wives are dressed in the same colors at first, while Bolanle and Baba Degi appear more in tandem, evidence of who is allying themselves with whom. As the story develops, each character’s costuming grows more singular, suggesting their isolation from the others; the outfits worn by Bolanle and Iya Tope become less garish and more subdued than those of the other two wives, signifying an anchor in reality. More than any of the other elements, these costumes play at cohesion and division amongst the characters, contributing to the film’s narrative tension. 

But “The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives” winds up too melodramatic, even for admirers of the genre. Perhaps it could have leaned more into its comedy, but what’s most disappointing is that it undermines its own dramatic flair by ending in a place of righteous moralizing. Tragedy and punishment pile up and only those characters deemed “good” by the screenplay escape unscathed. What stays with the audience are heavy-handed moral lessons, more than an entertaining couple of hours in the cinema.