Postcards Review: Netflix Series is a Forgettable Affair

– No Spoilers –

In this Nigerian drama, four people from Nigeria find love and acceptance after going on a self-discovery journey and facing their fears and desires.

The human stories of Postcards are quite relatable and cute with the different stories coming together in surprising ways. The different characters bring different flavours of human beings and bring forth a family drama that is somewhat watchable. The key players are grouchy Olumide with a romantic past, couple Siddharth and Zainab whose happy marriage has found a roadblock, fun-loving but lonely Aunt Bunmi and lastly, her son who wants to make it big in the dance scene, Yemi. All of these characters find themselves in Mumbai for one reason or another and face different issues before find themselves.

The problem with Postcards, however, isn’t the characters, it’s the way these stories are told and the conflicts that crop up in the lives of these characters. So the theme is that all of these people have their own problems that they have to get over in order to find happiness and these problems are relatable, everyday ones. You know when small things come together to create a huge issue – it’s that kind of a thing. But the way that these problems are presented feels disjointed and disconnected and the stories don’t flow together well in order to give a complete, flowing series.

The six 30-minute episodes are small but the storyline is so cliched and mind-numbingly stupid that you can’t help but want to jump to the next scene. Most of the scenes could’ve been cut down drastically, so much so that this series could’ve been a compact movie. The series is riddled with unnecessary drama that doesn’t feel necessary in the slightest in any way. The pacing is heavily impacted because of this as well. For example, we sit there watching Yemi being bullied over and over again for far too long but the different scenes don’t really add anything to his story – it’s just the same thing packaged differently over and over again.

Siddharth and Zainab’s storyline also gets a lot of limelight but, again, their storyline is so cliched and slow that you lose interest. Although their problem is serious, there is no discourse surrounding the matter and before you know it their problem is solved conveniently. It’s these things that really make watching this a confusing experience because you are forced to move to something insignificant the moment the real conversations start, diluting the issues and annoying the heck out of you.

Another problem that I felt with Postcards is that the acting and dialogue delivery are shockingly subpar. Everyone delivers their dialogue in such a way that it feels like they have all forgotten their lines. It’s so surprisingly odd and takes you right out of the experience. People look and feel awkward together and Rajneesh Duggal and Rahama Sadau have no chemistry and don’t make us root for their marital issues. The dialogues are also really subpar and stand out like a sore thumb.

Postcards Review: Final Thoughts

In the end, Postcards ends on a happy note, which is always a great thing. However, the path we take to get there is entirely forgettable. Although there are some cute and humorous moments, it’s not enough to keep you hooked, making you question the point of the series an episode after it starts. I related to the stories and the realistic problems that the characters faced, but the way they are tackled is unrealistic and frankly a little silly.

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