When Everyone Has an Opinion

Read Time:9 Minute, 1 Second

MOVIE REVIEWS
Food for the Soul
–

Genre: Comedy, Romance, Short
Year Released: 2025, 2026
Runtime: 18m
Director: Chisom Chieke
Writer: Chisom Chieke
Cast: Karen Obilom, Marcus Scribner, Richard Mofe-Damijo, Tristan Santana, Joy Hodge
Where to Watch: shown at the 2025 BlackStar Film Festival and the 2026 Pan African Film & Arts Festival (PAFF)

RAVING REVIEW: Family can turn a perfectly ordinary relationship into a committee decision before the couple involved has even figured everything out themselves. FOOD FOR THE SOUL understands that particular kind of frustration very well, finding comedy in relatives who genuinely believe they're helping while steadily making everything more complicated.

Chisom Chieke's 18-minute short follows Ada Eze (Karen Obilom), a first-generation Nigerian American, and Trey Williams (Marcus Scribner), her Black American partner. They're already dealing with the normal questions that come with building a life together, except neither family seems interested in letting them answer them on their own. Advice becomes expectation, expectation becomes pressure, and before long the relationship starts carrying the weight of two families' ideas about what their future should look like.

That setup gives FOOD FOR THE SOUL plenty of room for big personalities and quick comedy, but what makes it land is how specific the conflict remains. Ada and Trey's families aren't divided by some simple opposition where one side is obviously right and the other obviously wrong. They're Black families with different cultural histories, experiences, traditions, and assumptions, and Chieke has fun exploring how much distance can exist between people outsiders might casually group.

Ada's relationship with her Nigerian father Emeka, played by Richard Mofe-Damijo, is particularly effective in this regard. There's affection between them even when his expectations are pressing down on her, which keeps him from becoming the stereotypical controlling parent who exists solely to create trouble. His ideas about education, career, marriage, and success come from a recognizable place, even when they're completely at odds with what Ada wants for herself.

That's important because Ada isn't only negotiating her romantic future. She's also trying to decide how much of herself she can change before pleasing her family starts feeling like living someone else's life. FOOD FOR THE SOUL handles that without turning every conversation into a declaration about generational conflict. Sometimes the funniest part is simply watching Ada navigate a question when she already knows exactly where the conversation is headed.

Obilom is terrific at selling those reactions. Ada often seems to be mentally preparing three responses at once: the one she'd like to give, the one she knows she probably should give, and the one most likely to get her through the conversation without creating another problem. Obilom finds comedy in that calculation while still allowing the frustration underneath it to register.

Marcus Scribner has a somewhat different job as Trey because much of his character's appeal comes from his comparatively laid-back presence. That doesn't mean his family comes without its own expectations, however, and FOOD FOR THE SOUL avoids presenting the cultural pressure as something belonging exclusively to Ada's Nigerian background. Trey also has people in his life with plenty of opinions about who he should be with and what that relationship should look like.

Together, Obilom and Scribner make Ada and Trey feel comfortable enough around one another that their relationship doesn't need a long introduction. Their exchanges carry an established familiarity that makes it easy to accept they've already built something worth protecting. At the same time, the 18-minute runtime means we don't get quite enough of them simply being together before the family complications take over, and that's one of the few places where the short format works against Chieke.

I believed that Ada and Trey cared about each other, but I would've liked another scene or two showing why this relationship matters so much specifically to them. Most of what we're given involves outside forces testing their commitment, which makes the conflict immediately accessible but leaves the relationship itself largely unexplored. There's enough chemistry to make the story work, yet the film occasionally asks the audience to supply history that a longer version could have developed naturally.

Fortunately, Chieke doesn't treat comedy as something that exists only in dialogue. The camera frequently participates in the joke, holding a reaction a little longer than expected or shifting attention at exactly the right moment. Quick movements between characters can turn a simple exchange into something much funnier, while slower reveals allow us to recognize what's coming just before a character does.

That visual timing helps FOOD FOR THE SOUL avoid feeling like an 18-minute sitcom episode. Wren Rene's photography is warm and inviting without making everything overly polished, and the spaces feel lived in rather than arranged solely around whatever joke happens to be happening. The movie understands that family comedy works better when the environment feels comfortable enough for interruptions and arguments.

Food becomes another way to talk about identity without requiring anyone to announce what it represents. Ada preparing jollof rice isn't merely a convenient activity to give her during a conversation; cooking connects her to a culture and family that she clearly hasn't rejected simply because she's making choices they don't always understand. FOOD FOR THE SOUL is careful about that distinction, because Ada isn't trying to escape where she comes from. She's trying to figure out how to carry it with her without letting it make every decision for her.

That's where Chieke's writing has its sharpest edge. There's a meaningful difference between rejecting your family and rejecting the future they've planned for you. Yet, parents don't always recognize that distinction when their expectations have been built over decades. Ada can love her father, respect what he sacrificed, value Nigerian culture, and still want a life that doesn't match the one he imagined.

Trey faces a variation of the same problem. His family's interference comes from a different place. Still, the result is familiar: people who love him believing that gives them a certain amount of authority over the person he loves. The film gets laughs out of those situations while leaving enough discomfort underneath them to keep the comedy from becoming weightless.

Joy Hodge and Tristan Santana add to the controlled chaos around the couple, and the supporting performances understand exactly how broad they can go without dragging the entire movie into caricature. At times, the family characters come close to functioning primarily as obstacles or punchlines, though, and that's another consequence of having so little time. A feature-length version could probably give everyone more room to reveal the affection underneath the meddling.

That larger version isn't difficult to imagine, especially since Chieke has created characters and conflicts that could comfortably sustain more than 18 minutes. Ada's career choices alone open another avenue into the same question of personal fulfillment versus family expectations. In contrast, the cultural differences between the families could support considerably more comedy without exhausting the idea. FOOD FOR THE SOUL sometimes feels less like a story that has reached its natural maximum length and more like an especially good introduction to people I'd happily spend another hour with.

Still, wanting more isn't the same thing as finding what's here incomplete. The short makes a clear emotional argument, gets into it quickly, and doesn't waste precious minutes explaining cultural differences the characters themselves would never need explained. Chieke trusts viewers to follow along, and that confidence keeps the story moving.

The NAACP recognition is easy to understand, too. FOOD FOR THE SOUL takes an experience that could have been turned into heavy family drama and chooses warmth and humor without pretending that the underlying pressures aren't real. It allows cultural identity to complicate love without suggesting that love requires either person to erase part of themselves.

Something is refreshing about watching a romantic comedy where the big question isn't whether two people like each other but whether they can keep everyone else's definition of happiness from becoming their own. Ada and Trey aren't fighting against their cultures or even necessarily against their families. They're trying to establish that loving where you came from shouldn't prevent you from deciding where you're going.

FOOD FOR THE SOUL is funny, affectionate, and specific enough to keep its familiar family-interference setup from feeling recycled. I would've liked more time with Ada and Trey away from their relatives, and several supporting characters could use the extra dimension a longer runtime would provide. Still, Chieke accomplishes a lot in 18 minutes without cramming the film with unnecessary explanation.

More importantly, the humor never comes at the expense of the people involved. Everyone may be driving Ada and Trey crazy, but FOOD FOR THE SOUL understands that meddling can come from genuine love just as easily as control, and separating those two things isn't always simple. Chieke finds a sweet spot between cultural specificity, romantic comedy, and generational frustration, leaving behind a short that's light on its feet but not on what it has to say.

Please visit https://linktr.ee/overlyhonestr for more reviews.

You can follow me on Letterboxd, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. You can also find my social media accounts on most platforms by searching for 'Overly Honest Reviews'.

I’m always happy to hear from my readers; please don't hesitate to say hello or send me any questions about movies.

[photo courtesy of STUDIO ÀNYÍ]

DISCLAIMER:
At Overly Honest Movie Reviews, we value honesty and transparency. Occasionally, we receive complimentary items for review, including DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, Vinyl Records, Books, and more. We assure you these arrangements do not influence our reviews, as we are committed to unbiased, sincere evaluations. We aim to help you make informed entertainment choices regardless of our relationship with distributors or producers.

Amazon Affiliate Links:
This site also contains Amazon affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, we may receive a commission. This affiliate arrangement does not affect our commitment to honest reviews and helps support our site. We appreciate your trust and support as you navigate these links.