Half of a Yellow Sun is a novel by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie which recounts the Biafran war from a personal and not military perspective. Charged with adapting this 2007 award-winning book is first time director and playwright Biyi Bandele. Where the book focused on the two sisters, Bandele has streamlined that to one. Those two sisters are Olanna (Thandie Newton) and Kainene (Anika Noni Rose), two successful women who have returned home to Nigeria from England. Upon return, Olanna returns to her partner Odenigbo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) – the focus of the film – while Kainene meets and falls for English Author Richard (Joseph Mawle).
During the first hour, Bandele observes the growing relationships and the conflict that arises between the tribal heritage of Nigeria and their burgeoning bourgeoisie culture. The latter hour gives in to Biafran Civil War and how Odenigbo and Olanna try to keep up the status quo despite the chaos of their situation closing in around them.
Biyi Bandele is a playwright and on the evidence of the film that much is immediately obvious. Half of a Yellow Sun is made of many scenes confined to one room with a few players involved. As such the visual personality of the film is flat, putting too much emphasis on the performers while doing little to elevate the material. The way the director has framed the film would be better suited on a stage, thanks to his simple cinematography and the evasion of anything overtly cinematic.
Even with the political grandstanding, the play comparison consistently keeps dragging the film back down to earth.
HALF OF A YELLOW SUN
While Olanna and Odenigbo are but two of the many victims in a terrible situation, they try to get by o on single-minded effort alone, a strategy that is consistently interrupted by the war consuming the country town-by-town. With explosions and gunfire spontaneously interrupting expectations, it gives Half a Yellow Sun the power that one would traditionally assign to cinema attracted to civil war. While true, it also provides a necessary distraction from a relationship drama that meanders into soap opera territory all too readily.
Returning to Half of a Yellow Sun director and his background as a playwright, that form of storytelling is centred around heavily around the performance aspect of storytelling. Bandele’s experience translates well with a collection of performances that impress, save for Thandie Newton who regularly opts for screaming histrionics. The very opposite of Chiwetel Ejiofor who continues to cement his status as one of the finest actors working. John Boyega (Attack the Block) also gets a small role, but his inclusion is evocative of the down-scaling necessary to bring Adichie’s novel to the screen – in a TV series or stageplay, his role would be much more significant.
That is Half of a Yellow Sun’s problem, even with the political grandstanding, the play comparison consistently keeps dragging the film back down to earth. The greatest problem, however, is that there hints of a greater story, with Olanna grappling with Odenigbo’s super conservative tribal mother and the entire arc of Ugwu (Boyega). Knowing these aspects are present in the text but absent in adaptation, gives the impression, at times, that this feels like an abridged version edited down for convenience.
Half of a Yellow Sun is available to watch on VOD
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