‘She Gets Me’ Review: Joe Kinyua and Angela Mwandanda Anchor an Authentic Two-Hander on Modern Relationships

Envisioned as a theatrical play by director Millicent Ogutu, She Gets Me quickly became something more once writer Brian Munene poured his own heartbreak onto the page. The Kibanda Pictures duo recognised that the story needed a broader reach, transforming it into a film about a man and a woman charting the birth, death, and reworking of their relationship in a contained world where little else matters.

The film’s theatrical roots give it a unique flavour as the audience is immediately immersed in a space occupied solely by these two characters. To that effect, it relies heavily on internal monologue as a mode of communication. While this can be an effective way to engage a live audience in theatre, in cinema it often risks becoming a passive form of exposition. Munene and Ogutu structure She Gets Me into chapters and a series of fourth wall-breaking dialogues that are not so much information dump, but revelations that peer into the psychology of modern relationships.

Almost immediately, the couple’s differing ideas of love and relationships hint at the trouble to come. Yet these monologues also become the mode by which their truths will reveal the beauty in the formation and even breaking of said relationship.

She, played by Angela Mwandanda (County 49), views romance as a fairytale; he (Joe Kinyua, Njoro wa Uba) treats it as a game of strategy, yet both are afraid to admit their feelings in the middle. Well aware of the limitations of the film’s tow-hander format, Munene writes with such a personal touch, he inevitably makes the film universal avoiding the trappings of being “cinematic”.

Authenticity and communication are important pillars of building relationships, and ironically, the first two big lies we tell not only our partners but also ourselves. When She Gets Me opens, we witness how each character separately views their classic meet-cute moment. For the man, getting to that first date becomes a carefully played game built on chance, while for the woman, these chances are manufactured for him to make the move. Through naturally woven fourth wall breaks, we also see how miscommunication festers as individuals navigate the push-and-pull between their authentic selves and ideal partners.

These moments of breaking the fourth wall become extensions of the scene, cut in such a way that the camera moves back into a wide, exposing the characters as speaking not to an audience but to themselves.

On the surface, breaking the rule of direct audience address by doing away with the front-facing camera should not work. Yet what Ogutu does is shift the filmmaking language to use this as its own arc.

When the front-facing camera cuts to a wide and the man and woman continue talking, it becomes a way to vent and actualise their actions within the relationship. We witness how their misgivings give way to a whirlwind romance full of highs and lows. Well aware of the clichés and tropes of the genre, the filmmakers keep the journey succinct yet immersive so as not to lose the audience. It is here where the arc with fourth wall breaks takes a beautiful twist.

Initially, they flow naturally within the scenes, as the opening sees the man work through his day before turning to speak with us as an old friend.

When the bitterness of the split comes in, Ogutu twists the knife on her established film language. As the couple comes together to divide their assets and finalise their divorce, their monologues break the flow of the edit. This time, each character is well aware they are addressing the audience, attempting to make them see and take their side of the argument. Where once we are treated as the listening therapist, we now become the spectating judge.

Here, split screens and freeze frames allows each one a chance to make their case. This use of postmodern film language allows Ogutu to fight the notion of the film feeling too much like a stage play.

As the couple continue their fight, the writing and staging force the actors to move away from the camera and towards each other, forgetting the audience or the world around them. No longer are their thoughts confined to introspection; they weaponise their grievances to kill the marriage.

It’s almost magical how the film’s comedic touches seamlessly blend into the dramatic tragedy. To that credit, Likarion Wainana, serving as colourist, subtly shifts the film’s warmer tones into more neutral hues before closing the arc with cooler shades of spring that signal a shift in dynamic.

When the characters finally arrive at a middle ground that turns romance into a lifelong friendship, the arc feels earned. All of that is thanks to a film assembled with such thoughtful care and understanding of the human condition. It is also because the makers refuse to take sides; each point that rings true does so both in favour of and against the characters.

None of this would be possible without Kinyua and Mwandanda leading the narrative. They lean honestly, and with experience, into making the audience relate to the difficulty and compromise of navigating a relationship. Kinyua displays an easy yet goofy charm early on that makes his increasingly saddening monologue over the loss of love and identity hit harder.

Mwandanda gives interesting affectations to her character’s shifting insecurities; there’s sadness in her search for a fairytale love, yet by the end of the film her security in her own identity emboldens the film’s themes of the redeeming power of love.

As a two-hander set in a self-contained world, obviously due to budget constraints, She Gets Me finds two actors capable of carrying the format and enriching its themes. In the hands of different performers, the film could easily lose its hold.

After all, being in love often feels like living in your own bubble. Only the two people in that relationship can understand the good and the bad they go through together – and in that sense, She Gets Me earns its odd title: only he gets her, and only she gets him.

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