Akpos Otubuere | Pieces of Love / 2024

drunk on love

by Douglas Messerli

 

Julia Enobong (screenplay), Akpos Otubuere (director) Pieces of Love / 2024 [40.26 minutes]

 

Tobe (Daniel Uzo), a Nigerian businessman, is traveling and has rented a room in an apartment for a week while he attends a conference. Almost the moment he has arrived and called his girlfriend, she breaks off their relationship, an incident just slightly overheard by the other individual in the apartment, Alex (Daniel Abua), a far more gregarious human being who from the first scene, it is hinted, might be gay.

    Alex knocks on Tobe’s door soon after, finding Tobe just recovering from tears. He attempts to reassure him that perhaps she just needs time to come round. But Tobe admits that their relationship has been in a “bad place” for a quite a while. In fact, Tobe admits that he seems always to be the problem in his relationships, that in his last relationship the woman insisted she couldn’t connect with him. He admits that he tries so hard, that he wants…he stops there and breaks down in tears again, Alex coming to him with a friendly hand-on-the-shoulder hug.

     Alex assures him that he just hasn’t found the right person. But as Alex continues his gentle strokes of reassurance, Tobe suddenly stands, turns on him, and demands to know what he is doing, insisting he leave his room.

     Later, at one point, Tobe observes Alex busy in the kitchen cooking, dancing in a pink pair of pants with a shiny pink skull cap on his head. Soon after, however, he sees Alex in his room doing set-ups with hand weights, the very image of a fit man. It’s clear from these short scenes that Tobe is a homophobe, but yet can’t quite figure his roommate out, and if nothing else, is as intrigued as he is disgusted by his behavior.

     At another point, Alex is busy making dinner, and asks if Tobe might want some. But the other’s response is simply, “Fine, I’m not hungry.” Yet, it is clear after eating some sort of warmed-up cake, Tobe is very much still hungry and can’t concentrate of his work on the computer. He calls up a food kitchen on his phone, evidently having ordered dinner for delivery without the deliveryman able to find his correct address.

    Sneaking back down to the kitchen, Tobe spots a few left-over pieces of spaghetti, and looking around to be sure he’s not spotted, takes a fork and eats them up. Returning to the kitchen, Alex witnesses the act and moves quickly to the microwave pulling a plate that he has saved just for him, as he places it for him and leaves the room.

    By the next morning, things have changed slightly, as Tobe wanders into the kitchen with Alex asking how he slept and offering him some coffee, which this time the roommate accepts without the attendant grudges of the past. He finally opens up: “What are you being so nice me even after the way I acted?”

      “Well, because everyone needs some kindnesses sometimes. Even flat mates get coconut head.” And Tobe does finally apologize, but Alex is just as feisty in his reception, almost icily suggesting that he totally understands, adding, almost cattily, “And besides, you’re not my type.”

     As a sketch, many such films might end their, having proved their point that homophobia is a ridiculous mindset. But this film moves ahead 14 minutes in to a 40-some minute production.

     Soon after, when Tobe returns home tired for another day at the conference, Alex challenges him to a game of pool since, quite inexplicably, a full pool table has stood from day one in the middle of their living room space.

     A conversation comes with the territory, as Alex asks what the conference is about, Tobe reporting that his boss is looking for investors, and seeking a few people who “might throw money their way.”

     At regular intervals throughout the film, director Akpos Otubuere reminds the viewer of where this film is taking place, Lagos, Nigeria, a city not at all friendly to those who seek male on male relationships. The almost innocuous pictures of the quite beautiful and placid city particularly undercut the growing friendship between Tobe and Alex, a straight and gay man.

     Almost as if on cue, Tobe gets a call, and things turn very bad again as he admits that his team head has suddenly had a family emergency, which means he must leave the conference, putting Tobe in charge of the entire fundraising activity. Tobe expresses such anxiety that he declares he wants to die. He is suddenly terrified with the fact that he will now have to do the presentation.

     Alex simply cannot seem to comprehend the problem, Tobe, in true terror moving almost madly about the room as he makes it clear that he is not good at public speeches.

     Alex summarizes the situation: “Is that why you are fidgeting and parabolating about? Public speaking, he argues, is not that hard.

     But Tobe suggests that the role of public speaker is not at all for him, that he starts stammering, and simply can no longer communicate. The company needs money, and now can depend only on him, he declares, who he believes is incompetent with regard to oral rhetorical skills. Alex again suggests that he “just relax,” but even that comment sets Tobe as and he leaves to silence once more as he rushes off to his bedroom.

     This time Alex knocks on Tobe’s door to apologize. Alex suggests that he can help since, he admits, “I’m kind of good at public speaking.”

     Tobe mocks his lack of humility, but Alex succinctly summarizes his position, “Uncle, I can help you. Do you want my help or should I be going?”

     Alex attempts to give him lessons, showing him how not to move and how to move when necessary, how to speak more coherently, but it doesn’t seem to work, as Tobe gives up.

     Later he brings out a bottle of wine, Tobe still highly reluctant. Alex, always ready with a quip suggests, “You know what they say. That God always tests his best soldiers.”

    Once more the insecure Tobe argues that he is not among “the best.”

    But this time Alex also admits that of the two types of individuals, extroverts and introverts, he is an introvert, who happens to enjoy himself most while he his house watching TV. 

    A while later, with a few more glasses, Tobe asks his friend if he has ever had his heart broken.

   He admits, yes he has had his heart broken fifteen years ago by his very best friend. He tells the story of how he came out to the friend, who couldn’t quite accept it, but then was later attacked by others as acting too feminine. The law in Nigeria does not protect such people as him and his friend. The relationship fractured, there was no possible way that they could now remain as being friends, and he still regrets the loss. He argues, the friend’s inability to stay with him, was Alex’s loss, not the gentle and sweet friend.

     Again, the two gather around the kitchen as Alex cooks up some noodles, Tobe finally suggesting that he wishes he would teach him how to cook. In the midst of the tasting test, Alex stops to remove just a bit of noodles on his friend’s lips. And this time in a kind of sensuous moment, Tobe does not complain. Meanwhile the teaching of public speaking continues.

    Finally, the day comes. Alex fixes Tobe’s tie and begs him to remember every lesson they shared. At the very last moment, Alex demands Tobe take off his tie and his brings another one out of his closet and puts it around Tobe’s neck, his friend claiming that he is too bossy. Alex claims it’s his “lucky tie,” and the silk, blue and white silver-patterned tie surely looks like the correct replacement of Tobe’s thin red rag of a tie it has replaced.

    Tobe returns home, admitting that it went very well (the drama certainly required it) as he hugs his new friend deeply in thanks.

    Tobe needs to make some calls, and Alex, who we have since discovered is a doctor, needs to check up on some patients.

      When Alex returns, Tobe appears half naked, without a shirt, a bottle of wine in his hand, as he tells his friend to go upstairs and freshen up, begging Alex to please let him be the boss for one night.

    He has cooked up the dinner for the night, hoping for praise from Alex, who gives it only an “E” for effort, which frustrates the hard-working Tobe to no end.

    The doorbell rings, and Alex answers it to find Michael, the man whose card first clued Tobe in that Alex was possibly gay. Michael, we suddenly perceive, is a kind of brute, demanding entry to reclaim, so he insists, some shoes he as left behind. Michael is a brute, describing Tobe as “Felicia,” and grabbing Alex in the ass to claim his recently vacated territory.

    Once again, the city flashes briefly, as it has continually, before our eyes to remind us just how unfriendly this quite beautiful city is to its various citizens.

    For Tobe, it recalls all his homophobia as it brings the stereotypes into play. The relationship that the two have worked so hard to establish seems to suddenly be disintegrating in a manner of moments. Tobe quickly leaves the dinner table, leaving Alex to confront his now many ghosts.

    Tobe knocks on his door, quite brutally throwing the loaned tie at him, and explaining that he leaves the next day, mission evidently accomplished. “Michael,” Alex explains is just a friend, “his ex.”  “Are you mad at me?” asks Alex.

   And once again, Tobe attempts to apologize for the way he behave in the early days of their relationship, how he judged him without any understanding who he was as an individual. Alex reassures him that he is not a bad person, even if he feels like he is.

    “What I guess I’m trying to say is that…I love being around you.”

    Alex repeats the sentiment.

    But Tobe’s response says something so much deeper: “Does this mean I’m your type now?” And suddenly they kiss, perhaps revealing why Tobe has never been happy in a heterosexual relationship.

    The last scene shows the two sleeping in bed beside one another after what is quite clearly a night of intense sex. Tobe’s phone rings, pulsing in another attempt at interruption. It’s Rita, apparently ready to say she’s rethought the situation. But her call, given that two are now drunk on love, is unheard, never answered.

    This Nigerian film, a country in which male and female homosexuality is illegal and in which attempted same-sex marriages have been punished through Shari'a law through death by stoning is a truly contemporary, open conversation of gay love seemingly impossible given the strict conservative values of Nigerian adults. That this film, which considers the issue so openly and genuinely between what first appears as a gay man and a straight visitor makes it clear that there might be hope in the future for this English speaking nation which, with approximately 232 million people in 2024, is the sixth most populous country in the world.

 

Los Angeles, March 28, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (March 2026).