Movie Review; Glamour Girls (2022) 

By Kosisochi Aghadinuno

In the last few years, we’ve seen the Nollywood industry delve into remaking most of the old classics and adding a touch of the contemporary. It begs the question “Will they be able to deliver?” “Will they be giving us a run for our money?

In the past three years we’ve seen a couple of remakes, and sequels to classic Nollywood films. While some of them were worth our time, others were not. 

Now we have Glamour Girls, which premiered on the 24th of June and is now showing on Netflix. This is the remake of the 1994 glamour girls classic movie and it tells the story of four ladies, Emma (Sharon Ooja), Donna (Nse Ikpe-Etim) , Loiuse (Toke Makinwa), Jemma (Joselyn Dumas), who are determined to make it against all odds.

The original Glamour Girls was shot in 1994 and told the story of a village girl whose dreams for a better life lead her to take a questionable job in Lagos. It starred Nollywood veterans such as Liz Benson, Ngozi Ikpelue, Eucharia Anuobi, Pat Attah, Ernest Obi, Zack Orji, and others.

The remake however is a bit different from what you’d expect.

If you haven’t seen it, you should stop right here! If you don’t mind spoilers, here we go!

When Emma is kicked out of her place of work over false accusations, she is introduced to an agency that specializes in escort services, which is the quickest and unassuming way to make money. 

A friend introduces her to Donna, a high-end escort, and the story really opens up. Emma goes over to the agency and we are introduced to Donna’s character, a classy but broken middle-aged woman who is the owner of the organization. She turns them down because she feels they are not up to par. Apparently, there’s a standard but Emma being persistent and knowing what she wants, has to put on a show to get her through the door despite the odds. Donna is impressed and hires her. 

Now Emma is a newbie escort and we see a montage of her transformation. Her life is being made over, new clothes, new shoes, new hair, new apartment, an opportunity to hang with the best of the best in the industry. But all of these come at a cost, a cost of selling her body to afford the kind of life she wants.

Glamour Girls brings to light the systematic dynamics in “escort services”. I mean, who knew that it can be as organized as we were shown in the movie. (I didn’t) There’s a whole company name and structure to it. We witness Emma’s growth from being just the desperate naive young girl who walked into Donna’s office to become a top player in the industry. 

The themes of betrayal, love, friendship, resilience, determination cuts across the movie. The storyline was quite relatable, we see a young girl who is desperately trying to survive regardless of the odds thrown at her. 

We see the behind-the-scenes of a glamourous life – one where you have to work your way through the top. It highlights the advantages of being smart, we saw how being street smart helped Emma. In the word of Bobrisky, “good girl no dey pay oo”, any door you get through, you have to be ten times ahead or you’ll be trampled on or kicked out of the scene. 

Directed by Bunmi Adesoye and produced by Abimbola Craig, Glamour Girls did a good job in showing us what the escort industry is like right now.

So here are my thoughts; I know there’s been a lot of rave about how the movie was not up to par with the classic version but hello? This is generations after a lot of things have changed. The other was back in the day but this is our time so we get to see how bigger and refined the escort services is now in our time. 

The cinematography was perfect, but they didn’t do so well with the music. It was all over the place and we all know how important music is to storytelling.

The actors gave a stellar performance, Nse Ikpe-Etim was phenomenal as always, Sharon Ooja did so beautifully too, Toke Makinwa and Joselyn Dumas brought their A-game.

If you liked this, you should check out our review on Biodun Stephen’s Breaded Life.