Love Nwantiti is in the Air in “A Lagos Love Story”
An Afrobeat star. A girl from the trenches. Four days of babysitting. What could possibly go right?
Love is in the air… wear face mask.
Kizz Daniel sounded the alarm in RTID back in 2023: Love is a virus; stay woke lest the bug of love bite. It looks like everyone took note, except for these two.
The love bug that bit them is contagious, but don’t worry, it’s not transmittable through your phone screen. You’ll need to go outside and touch grass for that to happen. So we can proceed.
A Lagos Love Story is the tale of two unlikely souls —one, an Afrobeat sensation; the other, a girl from the trenches simply trying to raise money to settle a government tax gbese that’s threatening her family home — who somehow find each other… and fall in love… in under four days. If your instinct is to scream, “FOUR DAYS?!” I advise caution. Love is not a respecter of protocols. It strikes when it wants to. So get on with the program or—
As usual, please be warned: This review contains spoilers.
A Lagos Love Story follows Promise (Jemima Osunde), a determined young woman on a mission to secure a major contract that could change the fortunes of her struggling family. But what starts as a career-saving job interview quickly becomes something else entirely — a chaotic four-day babysitting gig for Afrobeat superstar King Kator (Mike Afolarin).
From the title alone, you already know where things are headed. Yes, it’s a meet-cute, star-crossed-lovers situation. Promise is the underdog from “the other side of the bridge” (as Veeiye’s character puts it, rather rudely), while Kator is a man on top of the world, with a flashy persona and a striking resemblance to real-life sensation Asake or Fireboy, depending on who you ask.
Their worlds collide after Promise shows up late to her interview — thanks to her sister Favour (Susan Pwajok) not coming through with a gate pass on time — and manages to turn the moment around by publicly putting Kator in his place at the event when he and his team try to humiliate them. Her boldness impresses one-half of the couple running the company (IK Osakioduwa), leading to a wild compromise: Promise can have another shot at the job, but only if she agrees to shadow Kator for four days and make sure he behaves. If she pulls it off, they’ll consider her for the actual role she came for.
The handwriting on the wall indicates that this is a toxic workplace. Favour even tells her sister about it, but she’s stubborn in her resolve to go through with it if it helps them raise the funds they need to clear out their debt. In hindsight, she was only just fulfilling destiny or *lowers voice* she was playing the long game, knowing she had what it took to seduce King Kator.
Truly, Promise knows the odds are against her. The government is threatening to foreclose on their family home unless they pay off the 20 million Naira tax debt they owe, and this job may be the only thing standing between them and homelessness. So, she dives headfirst into Kator’s chaotic world, full of flashy entourages, fickle schedules, and music-stardom chaos.
The heart of this film isn’t in its predictability (we know the two leads will fall in love); it’s in how it happens. The story takes its time letting us see Kator warm up to Promise, and Jemima Osunde gives her usual soft-spoken performance. She has a way of pulling you in, making it easy to believe that everyone from her boss’s husband to Kator himself would be drawn to her. Mike Afolarin holds his own, showing us a believable arc as Kator transitions from irritated pop star to smitten lover boy. It helps that the chemistry between the leads is just right — not explosive, but enough to sell the slow-burn romance.
There’s a deeper emotional core, too. Promise and Favour’s arguments over how to handle their family crisis deliver one of the film’s most profound moments. Favour reminds Promise that in clinging so tightly to their mother’s memory via the house, she’s forgetting to make new ones, a sentiment that’s simple, true, and likely to stick with viewers.
The production also spares no expense in showing off just how large their funding is. Appearances that range from waka-pass to glorified cameos from Lanre Da Silva, Mai Atafo, Ibrahim Suleiman, Chimezie Imo, Olumide Oworu, and more pepper the background. A lot of them don’t have dialogues, just faces you recognise that signal how deep the pockets behind this production go. And the world-building works sometimes. The tailor who gushes over Kator’s lyrics, the interview at the radio station, the encounter with the local boys at the buka, and the music video shoot scenes all add to the believability that Kator is, indeed, that guy. The songs, too, especially Bad Ass Fontain and Wait For Me, slap. I’ve had them on repeat for a while now.
But not everything lands.
Some character choices feel undercooked. Take Promise’s sudden pivot after fiercely rejecting the sleazy offer from Kator’s manager, Mayowa (Uti Nwachukwu), and making it clear she’s not for sale, she suddenly requests 20 million Naira from the same man in the very next breath. It’s jarring and clearly needed more time to breathe.









Final Thoughts
A Lagos Love Story is a dreamy romantic drama that knows what it wants to be and stays in its lane for the most part. Simple, basic, straight to the point. It doesn’t reinvent the genre, but it doesn’t fumble it either, in my opinion. The film hits familiar beats, and that’s okay. Sometimes we just want to watch two people fall in love, even if it’s in four days. Jemima and Mike are charming, the story has heart, and the fantasy works more than it doesn’t.
Is it perfect? No. But it works. And for anyone who still has a soft spot for a love story told under Lagos skies, this one's worth the ride.
A Lagos Love Story is streaming on Netflix.
There’s a video review of the movie on YouTube, too. Click HERE to watch it.
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