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The Farmer’s Bride may not have been officially billed as an adaptation of Charlotte Mew’s 1916 poem, but watching the film — now streaming on Netflix after a successful 2024 cinema run — it is hard not to feel Mew’s presence in its silences, its longing, and its tragedy. The film, which has swiftly risen to number one on Netflix Nigeria in 2025, carries the emotional DNA of Mew’s poem even as it transforms her English pastoral melancholy into a lush, aching Nigerian tale.
Set in a rural Yoruba village in the 1980s, The Farmer’s Bride follows Adunni (Gbubemi Ejeye), a young woman forced into marriage with Chief Bamidele (Tobi Bakre), an older, wealthy farmer whose affection she cannot return. When she finds herself drawn to Segun, the farmer’s nephew, the boundaries between duty and desire collapse, and the story spirals into betrayal, guilt, and supernatural retribution. What begins as a domestic drama swells into an allegory of freedom and fate, told through the rhythms of farm life and the hush of forbidden emotion.
It was shown in cinemas across Nigeria in 2024 before making its Netflix debut, where word of mouth and perhaps the quiet familiarity of its themes propelled it to the top of the charts. Viewers have praised its atmosphere and emotional depth as much as its performances, particularly Gbubemi Ejeye, whose portrayal of Adunni is both fragile and defiant, and Tobi Bakre, who gives a nuanced performance as the husband torn between control and vulnerability. Their restrained chemistry, more felt than spoken, mirrors the aching distance of Mew’s farmer and his bride.
Despite its deeply emotional story and strong visual appeal, The Farmer’s Bride was not chosen as Nigeria’s official submission to the 2025 Academy Awards, even after a remarkable box-office run in 2024. The film grossed an impressive ₦89 million in its first 12 days and went on to reach about ₦154 million by early November, making it one of the most commercially successful Nollywood releases of the year. Yet, while it triumphed in Nigerian cinemas and later dominated Netflix viewership charts, it may have fallen short of the Academy’s International Feature Film requirements, which demand that more than half of the dialogue be in a non-English language. Much of the film’s dialogue was delivered in English, with only portions in Yoruba, likely rendering it ineligible. Additionally, the Nigerian Official Selection Committee had earlier issued a “no entry” verdict for that awards cycle, citing that none of the year’s films fully met the technical and creative standards for submission. Thus, The Farmer’s Bride’s domestic success did not translate into Oscar contention, even though its artistic merit and audience reception were undeniable.
Visually, the film is a triumph. The color palette, dominated by earth tones, amber sunsets, and the deep greens of farmland, captures both the beauty and suffocation of rural life. The set design is equally meticulous, from the mud-walled compounds to the flicker of kerosene lamps, evoking a tactile sense of the 1980s countryside. Every frame seems to breathe dust and memory. The film’s pacing, though deliberately slow, allows these visual textures to linger, giving the story an elegiac rhythm that feels closer to poetry than prose.
As in Mew’s poem, silence becomes its own language. Adunni’s fear, her yearning, and her moments of rebellion are conveyed not through dialogue but through glances, pauses, and the hum of the environment around her. Where Mew’s bride was voiceless, this Adunni speaks softly but decisively, her silence no longer submission but resistance. The film honors the spirit of the poem while expanding its world, turning a Victorian whisper into an African wail.
The Farmer’s Bride stands as one of the more visually and emotionally confident Nollywood dramas of recent years, a film that reinterprets an old story of love and captivity for a new generation. Its success on Netflix is no accident; it is a story that feels both timeless and newly urgent. Whether or not it was meant as an adaptation, it captures the same haunting truth that Charlotte Mew wrote more than a century ago: that love, when caged, becomes something both tender and terrifying.
Verdict: The Farmer’s Bride is a haunting, beautifully acted, and visually rich reinterpretation of timeless themes. It stumbles occasionally in pacing and clarity but makes up for it with sincerity and atmosphere.
Rating: ★★★★☆ (8/10)
