Emeka Nweze
Lara and the Beat is a 2018 musical drama that tells a story of Lara and Dera Giwa who find themselves in the centre of a financial scandal with their late parents’ Media Empire. The movie received seven nominations at the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA).
With the popularity of the movie at the time of release and its numerous nominations we decided to see it again and below are some of our observations from the Tosin Coker film.
Ups
1. Story
Lara and the Beat is a great coming of age story with two sisters at the heart of it all. The story covered great themes such family, career, reconciliation, love and friendship. Even though it may not seem original, it was surely an uplifting feel good tale
2. Casting
Who doesn’t love an ensemble? Lara and the Beat packs a star studded cast that consists of a combination of veterans and “new school” as well as the best from the Music industry, yet it all didn’t feel overwhelming or unnecessary.
3. Overall acting
With such an impressive cast as that, nothing less than greatness could have been expected. And barring a dodgy performance, the acting was generally great.
4. Seyi Shay
Who knew that Seyi Shay’s talents go beyond her beautiful voice. Her character was meant to be the start of the show and she definitely pulled it off, delivering with aplomb.
5. First and second act
The beginning and middle of Lara and the Beat was nearly flawless, we were introduced to the main characters, idiosyncrasies as well as their motivation. The main conflict was established very early rather than drag and this could be attributed to the writing.
Downs
1. The length
140 minutes is a good enough time for a feature film, but Lara and the Beat could really have been shorter and still deliver every element of the story. There were a lot of unnecessary scenes, some other scenes were unnecessarily prolonged and while the movie was very enjoyable, its length made it feel boring at times
2. Vector’s acting
To be very honest Vector’s acting was almost hard to watch and was awkward most of the time. It felt as if he was trying too hard to pull off the character and his chemistry with Seyi Shay was a bit off..
3. Third act
After a great first and second act which culminated in an amazing build up to a crescendo, it all kind of fell apart in the third act which was slow, dragged and felt very basic. The last act had the most awkward scenes and dialogue, and while CashFlow, played by Deyemi was a breath of fresh air, his performance still could not save the uninspiring third act.
4. Music
Lara and the Beat was supposed to be a musical, but I don’t think a lot of attention was given to that area, most especially the lyrics. Despite veteran producer TY-Mix being in charge, the music was generally less than impressive .
5. Script
The script wasn’t terrible and it definitely had its moments of brilliance, particularly in the first and second act. However, let’s just say the writers had a lot of ideas in their heads and rather than filter for the ones that move the plot forward, they decide to pour it all out into the script. This ultimately made the film unnecessarily long with several scenes that really should have been cut out. More so, some of the dialogue was corny, mechanical or exaggerated.
