Not My Valentine: A Bar, a Will, and the Worst Possible Timing
Max just wants to sell his late mother's bar. Angela has other plans. What follows is a darkly comic week involving accidental death, a security guard with delusions of grandeur, and a Valentine's Day performance nobody asked for.
The Premise
Max inherits his late mother's bar, Avalanche, and wants nothing more than to sell it and move on. Angela, the bar's fiercely loyal manager, has other plans entirely — and their clash is only the opening move in a week that spirals fast: an accidental death, a security guard convinced he's someone far more important than he is, and the mounting pressure of a Valentine's Day performance nobody agreed to put on.
It's a comedy, but not a light one underneath. Strip away the chaos and it's a story about grief — specifically, the way people who are angry about a loss take that anger out on inheritance, on each other, on whoever happens to be standing closest when the timing is worst.
Cast & Crew
Directed by Charles Umoinyang. Starring Chris Isibor, Ajah Adaeze Jacqueline, Desmond Bryce, and Segun Sunday Olotu.
Why We Made It
Comedy is an honest way into grief — it lets an audience sit with something painful without being flattened by it. Max and Angela don't agree about anything except that neither of them is ready to actually deal with what they've lost, and that's the joke and the ache of the film at the same time.
Releasing it on Valentine's Day was deliberate. The title is doing double duty: it's a Valentine's Day film about two people who very much did not choose to spend it together.
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