Film: Glover, Rihanna combo "Guava Island" has 'juice' with fans

Following the April 11, 2019, showing of Childish Gambino and Rihanna’s musical film at the first week of Coachella 2019 and its premiere on Amazon for the rest of the world, the movie has been trending on social media and has been highly acclaimed by several film critics and bloggers who all share the same thought that this might just be Rihanna’s best performance in a movie.

Rihanna stars with Childish Gambino, aka Donald Glover in "Guava Island"

The reception to the movie pushed Rihanna, who played the lead female role of Kofi to take to social media and pour her gratitude to her millions of fans who in turn thanked her for a stellar presentation.

The movie explores the themes of oppression, poverty, freedom, unity and leadership through the lives of the ordinary population who are most affected by all these in any country.

In the movie, Donald Glover is Deni Maroon, a young musician who has a dream of starting a one-day music festival for the people of Guava Island who have been oppressed by Red Cargo (played by Nonso Anozie) who owns several businesses on the island and forces everyone to work 7 days a week while he makes much of the profit. Deni risks his life to make this happen although the odds are against him and his girlfriend Kofi (Rihanna) isn’t very impressed.

Childish Gambino’s character’s surname is Maroon, and his role in the movie is a hero of the island, a symbolism of the Maroons who rebelled and fought against slavery and colonisation over 300 years ago. Perhaps the one-day festival also goes a long way to show that although several of these rebellions were short-lived, many of them left a significant mark in history while others contributed to the end of slavery one way or the other. Whiles Red Cargo represents the many slave masters and colonisers, Kofi represents the many islanders who go with the flow.

Shot in Cuba, Guava Island represents a taste of the bittersweetness of the Caribbean through memories and music and gives a taste of the lives of the ordinary masses. There could not have been a better name for the Island.