Lady

Lady manages two remarkable achievements at once: Delivering both a slice-of-life narrative, rich with cultural details, while at the same time telling a galvanizing, even inspiring story about what it takes to activate a person towards speaking out for real change.

At 93 minutes, Lady could stand to be longer. The conversations between the women could go further. Nwosu is digging around in fertile ground, but there’s always a sense that things could go deeper. As it is, the film excels at depicting the complexity of female friendship within a devastating and isolating economic landscape.

Lady is a vivid, bracingly energetic examination of sisterhood and female bonds in an unequal society.

If Lady is more successful as a series of interconnected vignettes, than as one fluid narrative, it has a moving ending up its sleeve. After presenting a morass of rich themes, Nwosu teases out a small, surprising finale that transcends the blinkered concerns driving her protagonist.

If her filmmaking style is relatively straightforward, it’s a rich, raw sense of place that gives this Sundance entry — premiering in world dramatic competition — vitality and danger.

The downside is that Lagos is a more interesting character in this film than Lady herself, who Nwosu outlines with far less finesse. Such a glaring imbalance is symptomatic of the script’s overall flimsiness, which stands in contrast to this debut’s heartfelt performances and staggering visuals.