Now Reading
“Unclaimed” Review: Biodun Stephen’s Psychological Drama Explores Interesting Themes but Falls Flat

“Unclaimed” Review: Biodun Stephen’s Psychological Drama Explores Interesting Themes but Falls Flat

Unclaimed

Unclaimed is easily forgettable, and despite having what would ordinarily be an intriguing premise, it still manages to feel flat even when the stakes are at their highest.

By Vivian Nneka Nwajiaku

In Unclaimed (2025), directed by the prolific Biodun Stephen (Introducing the Kujus (2020), Breaded Life (2021), Sista (2022), Labake Olododo (2025)), a woman named Mary wakes up in her home, in a pool of blood and with a knife in her hand. The film implies murder, but the scene paints the picture of something staged, and even the police can only treat it as a missing person case since no dead body has been found. The missing person is Dieko, Mary’s husband, and Mary has no memory whatsoever of what exactly transpired.

Elma Mbadiwe stars as Mary, and Kunle Remi as Dieko in what is, in a sense, his second murder victim role of the year. Unlike the first one, the three-part series, The Party (2025), this time, it’s not a murder mystery in the strict sense of the genre. There are no suspects other than the wife, the police are doing even much less investigating than the ones in The Party, and even Mary’s parents (played by Norbert Young and Jaiye Kuti), who informally adopted a traumatised Dieko after a car crash claimed his parents’ lives while he was locked up alone at home as a pre-teen, don’t quite believe in their daughter’s innocence.

Unclaimed leans into this family dynamic and into the weirdness of the concept of adoptive siblings turned married couple, sometimes so heavily that Mary and Dieko as a couple feel almost incestuous. Their marital quarrels tend to play out like sibling squabbles, until lines are crossed and the situation escalates to domestic abuse. But even then, it still carries undertones of sibling rivalry and familial resentment.

Unclaimed
Unclaimed

Relationships between blood siblings are often fraught with tension; how much more relationships between a biological child and an adopted one who has experienced rejection in multiple forms? Why do parents choose favourites? How does a child handle the awareness that they are not the favourite? How does a child, biological or adopted, deal with being a part of a family in which they have always felt like an outsider? How do these tensions affect the relationships in a family unit, even one as small as the four-person family in this film?

These questions form the character motivations, although insufficiently fleshed out. And while the film’s answers might not be as tactical or insightful as they could be, they are capable of triggering some introspection. Perhaps, this is the value that Unclaimed has to offer: its exploration of non-physical abuse and the complexities of sibling rivalry—themes and dynamics that are rarely explored or, at best, merely highlighted onscreen.

But Unclaimed is not very dexterous in how it approaches the story, and it’s severely lacking as a psychological thriller. The ingredients are there. An interesting premise with potential for intrigue. Inner conflicts are triggered by external circumstances. Even Mary cannot be sure of her own innocence, and when she feels like she’s being watched or threatened, she can’t tell if it’s real or just paranoia.

Still, none of it feels gripping. Sure, psychological dramas tend to be slower paced than their thriller counterparts, but Unclaimed is too dragged out and lacking in urgency in many places but also rushed in others. And there isn’t much to keep us invested, either. The true nature of the events of the film is considerably obvious from the start, not because it’s intentionally made that way, but because the truth is simply not smartly hidden.

Unclaimed
Elma Mbadiwe stars as Mary in Unclaimed

So, we know where the film is going, but what we don’t know is how exactly things played out the night Dieko disappeared and how exactly the truth will be exposed. And that is what keeps us watching—the suspense that’s inherent in the premise, not any that is created in the course of the plot unfolding. 

How can there be any real suspense in this psychological drama, anyway, when there is no reason for a viewer to be drawn into the psychological warfare that the lead character is experiencing? When we cannot share in the certainty or uncertainty of the characters?

How can we take the unnecessarily provocative, not-very-competent, inappropriately titled “detective” seriously when her certainty as to Mary’s guilt is based on evidence that barely exists? How can we believe accusations of villainy and capacity for murder levelled against Mary by her own mother when the Mary we know is too passive or, at best, afraid, to the point that she walks down the aisle with a man she never agreed to marry just to please everyone else? 

See Also
Joel Kachi Benson

Then, there is the insipid dialogue, and the fact that neither the film nor its characters are very smart or logical. On the off chance that there are actually people who may not figure out the film’s so-called grand reveals very early on, I will refrain from giving out any spoilers. Suffice to say that, for example, people who are in hiding do not willingly expose themselves to people who know the people they are hiding from.

Unclaimed
Unclaimed

It also doesn’t help that Unclaimed can’t boast of the strongest of performances, definitely not strong enough for a psychological drama. Elma Mbadiwe seems as unconvinced of her performance as Mary is of her innocence. Teniola Aladese plays the swaggering police investigator with an attitude, but somehow still a little too casual, we have to wonder if her character is in the right film. And though Kunle Remi stands out with his portrayal of Dieko as a reserved and nerdy man who finds cruelty too easy, he has a number of performances that he’d be better remembered for.

Director Biodun Stephen, too, has many movies that she’d be better remembered for. Unclaimed is easily forgettable, and despite having what would ordinarily be an intriguing premise, it still manages to feel flat even when the stakes are at their highest.

Rating: 2/5

*Unclaimed opened in Nigerian cinemas on 20th June, 2025

Vivian Nneka Nwajiaku is a writer, film critic, TV lover, and occasional storyteller writing from Lagos. She has a master’s degree in law but spends most of her time watching, reading about and discussing films and TV shows. She’s particularly concerned about what art has to say about society’s relationship with women. Connect with her on X @Nneka_Viv

What's Your Reaction?
Excited
0
Happy
0
In Love
0
Not Sure
0
Silly
0

© 2024 Afrocritik.com. All Rights Reserved.

Scroll To Top