Citation Review – Speak Up!

Citations is a very emotional movie that is well-written, with a decent cast.

What Happens in Citation?

Citation follows the story of a bright, young student, Moremi. She is entering her Master’s degree at the very young age of 20, by far the youngest in her class. Her personal and school life is growing in a positive direction, and her life seems to be on the path she wants. She is striving towards her goal of working for the U.N. to try and help bring peace to countries across the continent and the world.

All of this takes a drastic dive downwards on a very fateful night. Without warning, Moremi’s life is derailed, and she is forced into some very difficult situations as a result. Citation follows the events of what occurs, and also Moremi’s fight to find justice.

Who Are The Characters in Citation?

 Moremi is our protagonist, and she is a postgraduate student at a university in Nigeria. She is an intelligent, well-liked student who is one of the tops in her class and has a bright future ahead of her. She is a helpful and kind student who is quite focused on her studies but does still spend time with her friends. Professor Lucien N’Dyare is the antagonist of the movie and we see that he is a quite charming and manipulative man who knows how to pick a target. N’Dyare is a horrible man who uses his power and status to force women into situations where they give in to him and punish them for not.

Citation Review

This was an interesting movie, to say the least. Having read the description I knew what type of movie this would be but it still had some unexpected turns. To start with this movie’s positives the acting in the movie is quite good, with all the actors giving nuance and depth to each character. Moremi (as played by Temi Otedola) is the protagonist, and we see her through many stages of her story.

We see the contrast between her before the attempted rape and after as we see her become sombre and distant from the trauma of the incident and the backlash of her decision to publicly oust her professor. Professor N’Dyare ( as played by Jimmy Jean-Louis) portrays this creepy man very well by actually showing how he could be quite charming and manipulative to get his way. 

The message presented in this film is powerful and it continues to be necessary in today’s world as there are reports of attempted sexual assault constantly and we need to normalize coming forward and seeking support while condemning those who take advantage of others. This movie is well filmed with many beautiful shots and a few shots where the positioning of Professor N’Dyare is above Moremi to show the imbalance of power.  Of course, this being based on a true story also makes this story all the more poignant.

Now while this film has a good message, I believe there are some problems with the execution. At first, the movie is really hard to follow with a lot of jumping from before the event and after which makes it hard to comprehend what is going on.

I would say it takes half an hour to adjust to the way the movie is formatted and structured. Another thing I had trouble with, though this could be my Canadian ignorance, but the characters constantly switch between languages which can make it hard to follow the conversations. This movie is long and sometimes I felt that some of the scenes they left in were pointless.

All in all this is a powerful movie that has a great message but can be difficult to follow at times. I recommend this movie to anyone who wants to understand this message even more.