For a creative person, working a traditional nine-to-five desk job can feel unbearable. It’s soul-crushing. Now, imagine that this person is a recently divorced father and a talented musician who can’t pay the bills, so he’s forced to live with his sister. That pretty much describes Ahamefule J. Oluo and his semi-autobiographical film, Thin Skin. Despite such a depressing description, this indy film is actually delightful. At least two thirds of it are.
Ahamefule is a man of many talents. He’s a trumpeter, composer, writer, stand-up comedian and yes, an actor. Thin Skin is based on two previous projects by Ahamefule: the off-Broadway play, Now I’m Fine and an episode from This American Life. Playing a version of himself, the movie opens with Aham lying in a crowded room. He looks like a hoarder. Then it is revealed that he’s been recently divorced and these are all of his earthy possessions. He and his two daughters are staying at his sister’s cramped a one-bedroom apartment in Seattle. He’s not alone. Ijeoma (Oluo’s real-life sister, writer and activist Ijeoma Oluo) has also opened up her home to her and Aham’s mother, Susan (Annette Toutonghi) who is driving Ijeoma crazy.
Aham spends his days at a corporate job doing who knows what. (I don’t know if it was ever revealed just what he did for work.) His boss, Michaela (Jennifer Lanier) is something else. She is all about helping “her people” rise to become something great. Aham could care less. He spends his night at a club in downtown where he plays jazz music and you can see how he’s a different person when he plays. He comes alive. The jazz music is featured prominently throughout the film. In fact, it is basically a character in this story as well.
Just when he thinks that there are no more shoes to drop, Aham and his sister receive a letter from their long lost father. He is Nigerian who married their mother, a white woman from Kansas, and left them when the kids were very young to start his life once again in Nigeria. Aham doesn’t even remember him. Then something unexpected happens which causes a lot of emotions and conversations between Aham, Ijeoma and Susan.
While the plot is a little thin, the dialogues between the characters are great and at times, really funny. Aham and Ijeoma are impressive in their first film roles and Aham may be the star of the show, but Toutonghi almost takes over. She is hilarious as the ditzy, out of touch but loving moving mother who only wants to think the best of her ex-husband. She could lead her own sitcom and should. She is a cross between popular actresses of long ago like Didi Conn (who played a Pink Lady in the movie Grease) and Georgia Engel (who played Ted Baxter’s wife on The Mary Tyler Moore Show). Not surprisingly, Aham’s comedian friend Dwayne (and real-life comedian Dwayne Kennedy) also has a few good lines as well.
Directed by Charles Mudele, Thin Skin is a slow burn tale that at times made me wonder where the story was going, but I really didn’t care for most of it. Then in the third act, things change. It all starts with a conversation from a mysterious man visiting Seattle. This is followed up with Aham visiting his Dr. Tendulkar (Hari Kondabolu) to treat his pink eye. The good doctor’s knowledge about how to treat the problem is questionable. What follows begins as a pretty funny satire before turning weird. The story abruptly turns in a different direction which alternated scenes that were at times surreal and others which were horrific.
It is during this time, that the story moves at a crawl and then suddenly wraps up very quickly. As the credits rolled up, I wonder what I had just watched. I understand the story that the filmmakers were wanting to tell. It’s essentially about the importance of family during a time or crisis or how they put it, “keeping it together when you’re falling apart.” However, I’m not convinced that they succeeded. It’s as if there was a heavier message that they wanted to convey but didn’t really know how to get there. The movie is a lot of setup but not a lot of payoffs in the end. Don’t worry though. It does end on a happy note and that’s worthwhile.
Main Image: Aham (Ahamefule J. Oluo) and his mother Susan (Annette Toutonghi). (Bayview Entertainment)
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