In a time when Lovecraft Country, Game of Thrones, Watchmen, Harry Potter and His Dark Materials are coining it and getting critical acclaim, Dudu Busani-Dube's independently published book series Hlomu the Wife is the inspiration behind Showmax's first ever telenovela series.
It dropped last week to positive buzz online, both on SA Twitter and Facebook. Showmax claims it's broken records but are not sharing the actual figures.
The question: is the hype for real? Let's dig in...
For the uninitiated, The Wife is "inspired by Hlomu the Wife" and not an adaptation so the producers don't have to recreate the books and can actually skip certain arcs or change it up.
The books are very popular, not just for the insight they give into the taxi mafia world, but almost for their "wish fulfilment" attributes when it comes to playing our fantasy of sex, power, control, grooming and toxic love within the black experience that’s not about the 1% life of Sandton.
The opening three episodes gave us a taste of the taxi violence, the sexiness of a stolen kiss that got tongues wagging and the other big draw card of the Zulu brothers.
Bonko Khoza plays the romantic leading man Mqhele, who tries to snatch Hlomu (Mbalenhle Mavimbela) from the goody two-shoes doctor by getting her to step into the dark side of being involved with him and his brood of colourful brothers and their families.
Kudos to production house Stained Glass for not going for the tried and tested names when it comes principal casting. From the leading lady to the brothers, there are some fresh faces - faces that have been bubbling under and one or two that will be familiar.
My gripe with the first three episodes is more a directing and production issue. The directors really seem to think everyone has read the books and do not take time to set up the scenes well.
For example, after watching three episodes, I still have no idea whereabouts in Joburg the brothers live? Which taxi rank do they actually operate from?
How do the different spatial areas change between the taxi rank vs Hlomus office? The director doesn't turn the city into a character so that it can comment on the relationships of class and space and the characters too.
The other gripe has to do with the production value for the money put into it - it doesn't translate. The action sequences could have benefitted from choreography and the shooting style doesn't hold a candle to DiepCity despite having a budget tha's way bigger than that.
But it's not all doom and gloom. The cast is brilliant. Abdul Khoza as the hotheaded Nqoba is my favourite thus far but all the brothers bring it, except maybe the two youngest ones, who at this point, feel like appendices instead of characters.
We care for the brothers, especially those we get to meet properly, like the eldest brother, our man Mqhele. Even Hlomu, we get to understand her dilemma within the first three episodes.
The story moves quite quickly, although it does not excuse some of the frantic editing where scenes end randomly into black and characters leave scenes only to come back to them with little to no motivation.
Maybe it was the first couple episodes and the guys were rushing to meet deadline.
As someone who never really got to finish the first book, I’m definitely intrigued and will keep watching. I'm interested in how the series will deal with some of Hlomu the Wife's not so savoury issues, especially around GBV, but that’s a story for another day.
For now I’m enjoying the fresh faces, energy and pace of the series and hope it gets better and better. For if this is successful, maybe we'll get more series and movies that adapt black focused books.
Ratings :
***
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*trash ** you are on your own ***it tries ****Almost perfect ***** Instant Classic