Married to Work is the latest Pan-African romantic comedy released on Netflix on 10th February 2023. The film is directed by Philippe Bresson while the concept is created by Idris Sultan. The screenplay is written by Angela Ruhinda and Nadira Shakur, who also co-produces the film under the banner of Okada Media.
The cast of the film includes Brian Chandrabose, Brian Abajah, Melvin Alusa, Grace Wacuka, Meg Otanwa and Idris Sultan. With a runtime of about 1 hour and 16 minutes, the film is shot in three locations, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar. The story follows an ambitious Kenyan woman, who is forced to pretend to be married to her Tanzanian boss in order to save his company from bankruptcy.
Netflix’s description of the film reads:
To save their real estate agency, an ambitious businesswoman and her entitled boss must convince an investor they’re married — despite hating each other.
-Married to Work Review Does Not Contain Any Spoilers-
The film starts off in a suspenseful manner which suggests that something terrible has happened but it doesn’t dwell on it long enough for us to understand everything. It shows that the owner of Mlemba Estates company has died in a boat accident and a music producer is shocked to hear it. Soon after we go off to Kenya in Nairobi, where we meet our lead – Malaika Waveru.
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She is the best at her work and always on top of things but due to some love matters, she ends up leaving the job and moving to Tanzania, where Mlemba & Mlemba offers her a job as a financial advisor, as well as assisting the new CEO. He is the son of the owner who died in the accident aka the music producer.
From then on it takes the shape of a typical comedy where the cold, narcissistic boss doesn’t care a bit about the new advisor, who just wants to do a good job. Even though the company is on the verge of bankruptcy, the young boss doesn’t understand the dynamics of what’s happening and remains wrapped up in his own world, where he is being forced to work in a corporate.
But Malaika is not someone who would sit there idly, she finds out ways to make things work and lands on a conference trip to Zanzibar with the boss, Zaki Mlemba. One thing leads to another and suddenly, the two who can’t even stand each other wits, are now pretending to be a married couple – to get a high-profile client on board and save the company from going broke.
Now, if you have seen enough romantic comedies then you would know that when two characters are forced together in a place/trip etc, things are about to change. As both of them get to know one another, understand their perspective and make grave mistakes that might hamper their newly formed connection for the worse.
Talking about the story, well rom-coms are a bit predictable yet you watch them to vicariously get the feels what the characters are going through. However, in this case, the needed chemistry between the characters is visibly lacking. There’s an awkwardness in the air which doesn’t let you connect with the characters or their story.
Individually, both the lead actors are truly talented but when it comes to coming together, I don’t think they work well. Whether it’s the flaw in the story or direction which doesn’t let us linger on the emotions for long enough. In many ways, I felt it to be very mechanical, like the two actors are some AI, who have been programmed a script and are saying it, without actually meaning/feeling any bit of it.
Final Thoughts: Married to Work
With a runtime of just over an hour, it is a quick watch, which can be played after a long day when you just want to watch something light without having to think much. Slowly we are getting some Pan-African content on Netflix and for a start, it’s not all that bad.
What the film lacks is depth, for example, if someone’s boyfriend of 5 years leaves them, they ought to show some vulnerability and sad emotions. But contrary to that, the film completely goes over without delving much into it. This makes the character look shallow.
Similarly, they showed the male lead’s true passion and you hope that maybe it will be a part of his character growth. Alas, it just ends up being a ‘different’ thing about his character and doesn’t add anything to the story. Even if he wasn’t into music and was just a cold indifferent character like they typically are shown, it wouldn’t have made any difference.
Married to Work is currently streaming on Netflix.
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