My Father’s Shadow – first-look review

The outskirts of Lagos, 1993: a harried father, Fola (Sope Dirisu), returning to his tumbledown home, makes the snap decision to scoop up his two bored, pre-teen sons and take them on a road trip into central Lagos to collect wages owed to him. He has an ulterior motive: so they may all be at ground zero when the results of a national election are announced and, all being well, M. K. O. Abiola will triumph over the ruling military junta and bring democracy and order back to Nigeria.

He proceeds with an element of caution, knowing that he has for too long been an absent father, earning money from a far-flung factory job (so he tells the boys) but has actually been moonlighting as a political lobbyist for Abiola. His duty of care extends to making sure that his sons have a better future, and in many ways this affecting and beautifully-judged first feature from Akinola Davies Jr is about a father wanting his kids to see first hand the fruits of his (often dangerous) labours and understand that he has been there for them on a national level, even if he hasn’t on a private one.

This entire review could be dedicated to the immense central performance by Sope Dirisu who, as the eternally conflicted father, is withholding a lot of information from his family for their safety. He also seems to have to alter personas with every new person he encounters. Initially, he’s a stern father who wants his boys (incredibly natural and funny performances by Chibuike Marvelous Egbo and Godwin Egbo) to understand a bit more about the country they’re living in, but perhaps not too much.

Soon he becomes the desperate grafter who urgently needs wages for upkeep; then he’s the shady political operative who people refer to as “Kapo” as he tucks a few notes in their pocket for survival. One thing’s for certain: he’s a pivotal, well-liked presence in the capital, emphasised by the fact that roving military police can’t stop staring at him as if they recognise him from somewhere

The first half of the film comprises a survey of Lagos in the 1990s, and through a landscape of severe socioeconomic contrasts he is able to give his sons a sense of the uphill battle that they face. They begin to see signs of the life he lives in the city, and sometimes the survival tactics he uses cut through his self-painted image as a righteous family man.

At the centre of a film is a dialogue scene on a beach in which the father leaves himself open for questioning and is able to impart both his wisdom and attempt to furtively cultivate a sense of national pride in his inquisitive offspring. Dirisu channels tenderness, but his indignation constantly bubbles beneath the surface. Yet their conversation is cut short by a gang of marauders suddenly hacking chunks off of a beached whale, and the film constantly leans on the interplay between the protagonists and the strange things occurring in the backdrop.

The direction by Davies Jr is absolutely top-notch, not just how he is able to capture the fine nuances of the actors on camera, but also how they are immersed into the chaotic melée of Lagos at this powderkeg moment. The plot ends up hinging on some strange coincidences in its final stretch, and the ending perhaps withholds a little too much detail for it’s on good, but otherwise this is a very fine picture on a formal and emotional level.

The film played as part of the Un Certain Regard strand at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, and could’ve very much held its own in the main competition.

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