The Diane Russet super terrific web series titled, Ricordi is a banger and has garnered lots of views since it premiered on Youtube.
The short web series which has just six-episode features some upcoming and talented actors. The intriguing storyline takes us on a journey of love, hurt and surprise at all turns.
Since leaving the bbnaija house, Diane has graced our screen with her acting skills and she is not doing badly.
Now unto the movie, Ricordi features talented actors such as Diane Russet, Daniel Etim-Effiong, Teniola Aladese, Eso Dike, Abdul TJ, Debby Felix, Rita Edwards, and Daniel Abua.
Ricordi focuses on the life of Fejiro (Diane Russet) and partly Adesoye (Teniola Aladese). Fejiro was left pregnant and abandoned by Lamar (Daniel Etim-Effiong) years ago.
Now in the present, they meet at her best friends’ dinner only to discover that Lamar is one of the friends of her best friend’s fiance. The friends are plenty right, (lol).
Oh well unto the matter. The story is kind of dicey and one can say it is not predictable which to an extent is a plus on the path of the scriptwriter.
The story has a graph view and was able to achieve a climax which created an avenue for us to have a purgation of emotions.
The storyline once again was perfect and beautifully written. One of the key themes of this web series that stand out in a relatable way is friendship and betrayal.
We love how, certain characters are used to represent these themes; giving us an understanding as to why they act and respond the way they do.
Now in terms of execution, looking at the characterization of the characters, not all did a terrific job.
Firstly speaking of the character of Fejiro (Diane Russet). This character was straightforward- at every point try to form hard girl, do not let your guard down so as not to let him know how to hurt you are. We could see that the character was perfect.
But Diane was not able to lift up this character from the ground. The character was flat, just a straight line from the beginning to the end.
In comparison to the character of Adesoye (Teniola Aladese) yes she is an upcoming actor but with the way she killed this role, the coming should be removed, and just UP should remain. Because she took the character given to her straight UP, bravo!
Of course, the saying- practice makes perfect, is definitely the case of Lamar (Daniel Etim-Effiong). He just keeps getting better at the bad boy role and he tends to wear the lead character garment quite well. He definitely didn’t fall our hands, we must say!
Now circling back to the storyline, there was a bit of glitch, especially the part where it was discovered that David (Abdul TJ ) was sleeping with Tare (Daniel Abua).
The glitch comes in here because we can’t find a source, intention, or motive as to why they would engage in homosexual sex. Let’s even say we are not interested in the why of Tare, but for David, we can’t define why.
Comparing this to the character of Malik (Eso Dike); now he killed his role, we got the message from his cynical and uncaring attitude to his gesture and laughter, it all cemented well.
Even the motive of him doing what he did to Lamar and Fejiro was perfect. It all made perfect sense. So why is this same motive missing in the case of David!!!
Going further, in terms of the musicality, we can say, the music director did a good job. The music was lovely.
It enunciated the mood deserved for each scene and helped to create the right atmosphere that aided in portraying the desired message of each scene.
The location used was good enough. Not many places were used for the set as the movie didn’t really require a bogus set.
Now one of the high points of this movie is the fact that the main cast was not up to ten, but it wasn’t obvious.
Now, this what I call a smooth ride. The fact that yes, the cast is small but together they were able to portray a much fuller scenario at each scene.
The kudos for this would definitely go to the director and the cinematographer. We can applaud the fact that we had a seamless flow from one scene to another.
And the placement of the casts each time was terrific, we have to commend these two.
The make-up and costume are not left out; These two were good, in the sense that the make-up artist and costume designer was focused on bringing out the beauty within each character and also thinking in line with the central idea of the director.
And portraying costumes that go in line with this.
If you are looking for lost love, hurt pride, friends betraying friends, lovers but haters at the same time, this is the perfect series for you.
The storyline of Ricordi is broad enough to accommodate a space for love, hurt, anger, confusion, realization, and then forgiveness. The perfect natural line, which brings us to the point where we can say that the scriptwriter did a good job, irrespective of whatever loopholes exist.
Making use of the first-person narrative in Ricordi is a style that, if not handled well, will be confusing.
But in this series, they were able to arrange every scene to correspond with one another.
Final Thoughts
Diane Russet might not be a fantastic actor, but she is a great scriptwriter. The web series Ricordi is a mind-blowing series that highlights the emotional and mental aspects of relationships. The angle from which the story is told is one big plus for this series and we say Weldone.
It has been said that there will be a season two, so fingers crossed as we wait to see the loophole in this season covered up. And a more exciting twist.
Credit: Jane Aimuengheuwa