For more than half an hour, it looks as though director Andrew Dosunmu's feature is going to be entirely cultural anthropology, delving into the details of a traditional wedding between Ayodele (Isaach de Bankole) and Adenike (Danai Gurira), Nigerian immigrants living in Brooklyn. It's wonderfully detailed material, setting up the intense pressure on Adenike from her widowed mother-in-law to bear a son to name after Ayodele's father. But as the rest of the narrative explores what happens when Adenike and Ayodele are unable to conceive, what begins as an intriguing cultural curiosity doesn't make the leap to a story that resonates with the lives of particular characters. The most crucial gap is the development of Ayodele's younger brother Biyi (Tony Okungbowa), whose complex feelings towards his brother should be central to the plot developments but remain frustratingly obscure. Dosunmu's effective contrast between dreamlike street scenes and up-close-and-personal intimacy elevates the material, but it's hard to fully embrace a story that feels less like a tale of these unique people than a delivery system for Nigerian cultural details. (Scott Renshaw)
