Sayari’s accomplishment lies in its meaningful step toward grounding a Kenyan iteration of the romantic comedy genre.
By Frank Njugi
A film’s value at times lies not merely in its technical prowess or narrative arc, but in its capacity to authentically render the zeitgeist and social realities of the world it inhabits. Romantic comedies, by privileging emotion over overt political or social commentary, can become inadvertent cultural barometers which mirror a society’s ideals of love, and modernity, as they cloak social critique in the familiarity of charm or humor.
In recent years, African films have begun to turn inward, not merely to recount tales of love, but to interrogate how love itself is shaped by this place, our politics, and our collective memory. This shift is perhaps most evident in the growing number of romantic comedies emerging from across the continent.
One of Africa’s most recent interrogations of love comes in the form of the film, Sayari, a new romcom set against the breathtaking backdrop of Tigoni–Kenya’s lush tea fields–that premiered in Nairobi cinemas.
Sayari follows the unraveling world of Jamal (portrayed by Lucarelli Onyango), a stoic Nairobi businessman who escapes the suffocating expectations of an urban life scripted by duty and social convention. Seeking refuge in the cool hush of Tigoni, Limuru, a region known for its soft, verdant hues, Jamal checks into a modest bed and breakfast, where he meets Shiru (portrayed by Muhugu Theuri), its intuitive caretaker. The plot soon gives way to a romance between the two.
As the love story between Jamal and Shiru begins to happen, a hidden truth lingers: unbeknownst to Jamal, Shiru has been secretly contracted by his father (portrayed by Eddy Kimani) to sabotage his stay in Tigoni and ensure his return home where an arranged marriage awaits. Hired to rein in the runaway groom, Shiru initially dedicates herself to making Jamal’s life at the bed and breakfast unbearable. But the lines begin to blur very fast as romantic feelings take root.
This may sound like a familiar romcom trope and one that risks you dismissing the film as just another formulaic offering. But Sayari distinguishes itself as it carves a depth beneath a romantic veneer, becoming a filmic meditation on choice, and the dialectic between city and countryside—leveraging the contrast between Nairobi’s accelerated, obligation-laden modernity and Tigoni’s stillness.
There is an authenticity to how the characters in the film approach one another, their dialogue and gestures feel distinctly Kenyan. This grounds Sayari in a clear cultural setting, and sets it apart from the more generic, often Westernised templates of the romantic comedy genre.
Still, the film is not without noticeable shortcomings. One issue lies in its pacing. At just 1 hour and 13 minutes, Sayari’s brevity may be its undoing. Key moments and situations manifest themselves too rapidly, often sacrificing any emotional buildup.
While the leads are given clear arcs, the progression of their relationship is rushed, with dramatic moments that slip into a territory that feels overly manufactured, disrupting the otherwise grounded tone the film seems to strive so hard to uphold. As a result, some emotional shifts come off as forced rather than fully earned.
Another of the film’s shortcomings may stem from its brevity. The supporting cast, while present, is rendered more as narrative props than fully realised figures, serving primarily to orbit the arc of the two leads. While Shiru’s father (portrayed by Gitura Kamau) as a character stands out, as his grief and alcoholism echo the melancholies of rural Kenya, other characters feel like narrative sketches.
A local suitor tries to vie for Shiru’s affection, creating tension but is never granted enough screen time to register any genuine thematic counterweight. Likewise, Jamal’s father, who pops up only a few times, and the woman he is being pushed to marry, remain off-screen abstractions, invoked more than embodied. Their absence, both literal and symbolic, dulls the stakes of Jamal’s conflict and weakens the social web the film hints at but never dives into. So, Sayari gestures toward a broader communal narrative, but remains tightly, and perhaps too safely, focused on its central romance.
Albeit, this focus on the central romance is not without its rewards. In privileging intimacy over complexity, the film leans fully into the pleasures of its genre, offering charm, chemistry, and emotional payoff to satisfy the casual viewer seeking a lighthearted escape. After all, romantic comedies, by design, are meant to comfort as much as they are to provoke.
The cinematography, while not especially inventive, benefits generously from the film’s natural setting. Tigoni’s mist-laced tea fields and soft, undulating geography (and a well–kept modest BnB), do much of the visual heavy lifting. The camera lingers just long enough on its leads, Lucarelli Onyango and Muhugu Theuri, who look undeniably good together and imbue their most predictable beats with a watchability that both invites and resists critique. Their screen presence becomes a kind of narrative insulation: one is less inclined to interrogate what the film omits when it delivers on what it sets out to do, which is to tell their love story.
As the film approaches its conclusion, it ticks off the genre’s known requisites. Revelations of the underhanded deals, abrupt emotional confrontations, declarations of love, and the inevitable promise of forever. The developments come with a velocity that mirrors the rest of the film’s pacing; quick, almost impatient, as if wary of lingering too long on any single emotion.
The romantic crescendo is rendered with a cheesiness that surfaces throughout the film— moments of wit together with sentimentality so on-the-nose they teeter on being too excessive. Yet this very quality, while never quite elevating the love story, doesn’t drag it down either. Instead, it leaves Sayari suspended in that familiar rom-com terrain.
As the credits roll, one realises that Sayari’s accomplishment lies in its meaningful step toward grounding a Kenyan iteration of the romantic comedy genre. It flirts with subverting the genre expectations—not successfully though— through a blend of local humor, cultural specificity, and a brand of cheesiness that feels distinctly Kenyan.
Its more compelling gesture is spatial: by setting the story in Tigoni’s landscape, the film opens up space for romance to function both as a plot and the lens through which broader questions of class, duty, and rural-urban dissonance can be looked.
This Omar Hamza-directed and June Wairegi-produced film may be far from reinventing the Kenyan rom-com, but it might signal a cinematic imagination eager to stretch the genre’s familiar form into something recognisably and refreshingly its own.
Rating: 2.5/5
*Sayari has its African premiere at the Amathole District Film Festival (South Africa), opening night.
Frank Njugi is an Award-winning Kenyan Writer, Culture journalist and Critic who has written on the East African and African culture scene for platforms such as Debunk Media, Republic Journal, Sinema Focus, Culture Africa, Drummr Africa, The Elephant, Wakilisha Africa, The Moveee, Africa in Dialogue, Afrocritik and others. He tweets as @franknjugi.