Movie Review: “The Third Chance” explores Why Women remain in Abusive Relationships!

Director: Morris Sesay

Producer: Morris Sessay

Cast: Yvonne Jegede, Moyo Lawal, Jose Tolbert, Tina Mba and Jide Kosoko

Year: 2017

Domestic violence is not an easy topic to tackle and as a filmmaker, Morris K Sessay is doing an evangelistic work to the situation.

Our lead character played by Yvonne Jegede Fawole is from a poor family, and when she meets the man of her dreams, he does not just offer happiness but riches. He helps her family out of poverty and offers them a new life. However, when they get married he becomes abusive.  He brags about his riches and knocks her off at every provocation. She leaves the house subsequently but she does not have enough financial backing to stay away from him, her parents do not offer support and so she has no option but to return to her husband and continue in an abusive relationship. He hits her again; she leaves but returns, the third time is what offers inspiration for the title of the film.

The Third Chance is a remarkable contribution to the topic of domestic violence and financial independence for women. The only reason our lead character keeps going back to her abusive husband is because she has nothing to back herself up, when she finally starts a business of selling akara and making use of the internet to promote her business, we see her gain leverage. This story depicts the situation of many women, and while the film is quite a long feature, it offers a fresh take on domestic violence. It also does a good job of reflecting on the lack of financial independence and how this has a direct link to domestic violence. Violence does not only happen when a woman has a broken lip, it can be emotional too, and our lead character gets the violence in every phase. Morris offers a solution; he does not only tell us of a problem and this makes his story a winning story.

Yvonne Jegede schools us on good acting while Jose Tolbert is the absolute beast. It is good acting that makes him a beast, and we hope we are able to get this character off our head and enjoy him in other roles.

The Third Chance earns a 7/10