Everything about Tarella takes you out of whatever world it wants to place you in, and with the directors and their crew so manifestly uncertain of the world they are building, it’s no wonder that the cast feels like they are merely engaging in cosplay.
By Vivian Nneka Nwajiaku
When Tarella was first announced sometime in 2022, I was both worried and excited. Historically, Nollywood’s portrayal of women has often been problematic. Critics, including myself, have written extensively on the tendency of Nollywood films and shows to employ sexist tropes and reinforce prejudicial stereotypes against women.
So, of course, I was concerned about how Nollywood would approach an adaptation of a story like Cinderella, famous for its damsel in distress trope.
But I was also eager to see a Nigerian take on a mythical African kingdom, especially on the big screen. I was curious about its influences and vision, and I could not quite tell whether it would be historical, contemporary, or Afrofuturistic. Three years later, I still cannot tell. Not even after watching all 108 minutes of the film.
Directed by Kayode Kasum (Kambili (2021); Afamefuna (2024)) and Lolo Eremie in her directorial debut, from a screenplay written by Eremie (GuynMan (2017)), Tarella: Princess of the Nile follows a young orphan woman who suffers at the hands of her stepfamily but catches the attention of a prince.
On his part, the prince is on a deadline to find a princess, but without knowing who Tarella truly is, he must find creative ways to identify his mystery lady.
Tarella is set in a mythical kingdom called Akkaya, somewhere in West Africa. It’s the most indistinct kingdom I have ever seen onscreen; a fictional kingdom with no uniformity and no indication that its people share any values or way of life, not in style, attitude, language, or even in dance.
In fact, we know more about the neighbouring, vegetarian kingdom than we do about Akkaya. The best we get is a geographical division of the kingdom. On one hand, there is the hillside, where the prince hails from; on the other, there is the seaside which is home to Tarella.
What makes these two communities identifiable, beyond the hills and the sea, is nothing more than generic, stereotypical assumptions: Tarella finds hillside men to be arrogant, and the prince believes seaside girls are materialistic.
The film dumps the audience into a make-believe world without a hint of world-building, expecting viewers to make sense of it simply because it’s supposedly an African kingdom.
The filmmakers cook up a disconcerting potpourri of languages and seem to be playing a game of spot-the-culture, borrowing from a variety of African cultures―predominantly Nigerian tribes―with no care for the stark differences in their visual and philosophical outlooks. And, somehow, they still manage to mix it all up with as much westernisation as can be afforded.
It may be that the makers of Tarella drew inspiration from Hollywood’s Black Panther (2018), which also merged diverse African cultures in creating its fictional nation of Wakanda, as well as elements of what would ordinarily be associated with western civilisation.
But here’s the thing: there is a lot of work that goes into establishing a film’s world, especially when its setting is a fictional world. It’s simply not enough to arrange some huts, draw up some nsibidi-like symbols, sew up a variety of African prints, and crown the king with a Benin headgear—while simultaneously forcing a medieval crown to sit uneasily on the head of a West African prince.
For all its flaws, even Black Panther did not take its influences for granted. There was clear identification of the different Wakandan tribes, including their values and their aesthetics, such as to explain the world’s inbuilt diversity.
The supposed western elements are justified with Wakanda’s possession of advanced technology. And we can query the accents as much as we like, but there is no denying the effort that was put into creating the language of that world.
You see a film’s time and place in the fashion, in the art, in the language, and in the mannerisms. But this is not a film that cares about any of that, not when it throws around ancient English words like “Alas!”, has a medieval castle for a palace, and follows a Tiv cultural dance with a western ballroom dance.
Everything about Tarella takes you out of whatever world it wants to place you in, and with the directors and their crew so manifestly uncertain of the world they are building, it’s no wonder that the cast feels like they are merely engaging in cosplay. Most of them cannot figure out where or how they fit into this fictional world.
Okawa Shaznay (Love Happened (2022)) is a decent blend of soft-mannered and determined as the eponymous Tarella Daerego, a play on the names of both Cinderella and Agbani Darego, the only Nigerian and first Black African winner of the Miss World pageant (she was crowned in 2001).
Very much like Cinderella, Tarella goes about her day-to-day with so much cheerfulness that she almost looks like she’s about to break into a song, but even she feels more like an idea than a person. Timini Egbuson (Elevator Baby (2019); Breaded Life (2021)), as Prince Nosa, has more charm than his usual spoiled-rich-kid roles but not enough for Prince Charming.
Elvina Ibru (The Bling Lagosians (2019); Kambili (2020)) is cast as Señora, the wicked stepmother, whom she takes on with an exaggerated Igbo accent and more posturing than actual meanness. Nengi Rebecca Hampson (Badboys and Bridesmaids (2021)) and Onyinye Ezekwe (Hate at First Meet (2024)) play step sisters, Ebikella and Ebinimi, who are even more of a caricature than the original Drizella and Anastasia. Hampson’s off-putting maniacal cackle, in particular, makes an already off-putting film unbearable.
At least, Tarella doesn’t have mice running around to help her with her errands. Nollywood’s re-enactment features a third, much younger stepsister (played by Ellyssa Nwator) who is also treated as an outcast by their family, for reasons we’ll never understand.
Tarella does not have a fairy godmother, either. What she has is a goofy, dreadlocked butcher, played by an eccentric Gideon Okeke (When Love Happens (2014); Tòkunbò (2024)) with an exotic accent.
He sponsors her elaborate dress for the palace event thrown in honour of the prince and makes sure she gets a grand entrance, but whether his intentions are innocent remains to be seen. At least, we did not have to worry about that with Cinderella’s magical elderly woman.
Somewhere in the middle of Tarella, the film breaks into a brief animated story set in Egypt that looks into Tarella’s royal roots and serves to explain away the mystery of the glass slipper or, in this case, an ankle bracelet that can only fit its true owner. It’s also a somewhat original take on the Cinderella story itself.
And although the animation is poorly resolved and ends in a hurry, it is a genuinely better watch than the rest of the film.
Earlier, I invoked Black Panther in my criticism of Tarella’s world-building. Maybe that was too far or even unfair. The entire Nollywood might struggle to come up with the funding that Hollywood’s Marvel Studios may single-handedly raise. But I know that this is not the best Nollywood can come up with, in terms of creating mythical African kingdoms.
After all, we saw what Nigerian filmmakers did with the world-building in Mami Wata (2023), with director C.J. “Fiery” Obasi establishing a fictional contemporary village with slight exposure to western civilisation but a deliberate isolationist philosophy.
Production on Tarella might have been concluded before Mami Wata, but the tenets that Obasi’s film adhered to are no secrets. The distinguishing factor is not ambition or funding, but intentionality and care.
Perhaps, it could have been worse. At least, Tarella does not over-flog the damsel in distress trope. Sure, the basis of the prince’s attraction to her is the perception of moral superiority which the film misguidedly endows her with solely based on her non-materialism. Tarella is worthy of the prince’s interest because she’s “not like other girls” who are obsessed with gifts and favours. But, to my mind, her true value is in her characterisation as a woman who knows herself.
Nollywood’s Cinderella doesn’t actually need Prince Charming to save her, even though he quite literally does. With Tarella, you always get the feeling that she’ll eventually break herself free, one way or the other.
Rating: 1.5/5
(Tarella: Princess of the Nile is currently showing in Nigerian cinemas.)
Vivian Nneka Nwajiaku is a writer, film critic and lawyer writing from Lagos. She’s just returned from a long hiatus and can’t wait to unpack as many films as humanly possible. Connect with her on Twitter @Nneka_Viv