In this Nollywood classic, True Confession, Mabel is ‘a beautiful woman who schemes her way through life.’ But that is not where the story starts.
Tessy is a good woman from a poor background. She is married to Chief Moses Umeh, a very wealthy and connected politician who was raised by a single mother. The couple lives in a mansion with Tessy’s evil mother-in-law, Mabel, a woman who seems to enjoy bullying and plotting against the innocent Tessy. Moses Umeh is Mabel Umeh’s only child, and she has an unhealthy hold on him. Mabel is finally able to convince her son that Tessy is controlling him with black magic, so Moses throws his wife out of the house. Disgraced, heartbroken, and with nothing to her name, Tessy begs God for justice.
Suddenly, there is confusion in Moses’ life. A Northern man emerges from nowhere, claiming he is Moses’ father. In anger, Moses strikes and accidentally kills him. The scandal destroys his chances at being Governor of his state. Overwhelmed by grief, Moses decides to commit suicide. Mabel panics. She begs her son, saying “I’m the one to blame.” Then she begins to tell Moses the truth about his father and her ‘rough life’. The film transitions into a flashback, and this is essentially where the real story starts.
Liz Benson gives a stellar performance in this film. Both as the younger and older Mabel. In her flashback, she is a crafty woman who uses her husband’s money to finance lucrative business ventures. She keeps her dealings and her profit a secret from her husband, and manages to supervise a string of employees who remain loyal to her and keep her secrets. Zack Orji is Moses Umeh, Liz Benson is Mabel Umeh, Jennifer Ossai is Tessy, and Sola Fosudo is Mabel’s late husband.
Like most of the films from this era, love is a strong theme point in True Confession. But the film also shed light on some other very profound matters. Does a man have a right to know what his wife does with the money he earns? Does the money he earns belong to the couple/family or to him alone? Is it stealing if a woman takes her husband’s money without permission? And, are we protecting our children or suffocating them when we try to protect them from our own mistakes?
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When Mabel says to her son, “I wanted to keep her from doing to you what I did to my husband,” we see that the consequences of evil are not always physical. Mabel succeeded in securing a good life for herself and her son at all costs, but the price was her peace of mind. You’ll have to watch the 2-hour long film to find out what else happened. Thankfully, you can find almost anything on Youtube if you look hard enough. Watch True Confession, in all of its blurry glory, click here.
True Confession was released in 1995. It was directed and produced by Kenneth Nnebue, the legendary Nollywood pioneer who launched the home video boom of the 90’s when he recorded the classic Igbo film, Living in Bondage, on a few spare cassettes. Under his production company, Nek Links, Ken Nnebue produced some of the most lucrative movies of early Nollywood. Films like Glamour Girls, The Maid, True Confession and Lost To Lust. Hardly anyone knows where Kenneth Nnebue is today.
Sources:
Pulse
Pulse.com.gh
kamdora
Vanguard News
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