The Thematic Romance and Spiritual Pedagogy of Seven Doors

I don't know if anyone doesn't have a beginning be it humble or otherwise. Femi Adebayo's foray into acting may have been intuitive. Still, the betterment of his craft over the years has been deliberate from playing minor to major roles in numerous movies before venturing into production. His very first effort was Jelili in 2011, a comedic exploration of the vogue in the days of Baba Suwe, Aderupopo, etc., and a sequel, Survival of Jelili in 2019 which Desmond Elliot directed. However, we can’t but stress for the record that King of Thieves which he produced in 2022 upped his ante and became a testament to rubbing shoulders with ace producers like Kunle Afolayan, Tunde Kelani, and others who delight in embedding core traditional values in indigenous stories. In 2023, he followed up with another block-buster Jagun Jagun and now Seven Doors , a story set in post-colonial Nigeria, which became number one on Netflix within 24 hours of its release in November 2024.

Seven Doors literally means seven different physical doors one would go through to arrive at a place. Surprised, it isn’t? It is an allegorical representation of the way out of the ancestral misdemeanor of Oba Adejuwon (Kola Ajeyemi) who killed his elder brother to be king in his stead and shortly after offered his seven wives for the longevity of his reign as king over Ilara (a suburb town in Ondo state where the movie was shot). Now that the kingship of Ilara has returned to his bloodline, Oba Adejundoye and the whole of Ilara begin to experience and feel the repercussions intensely until Oba Adejundoye is compelled to marry six more wives by Ifa to end the crisis. The total number of the exact seven according to Ifa would serve as the doorway to appease the souls of the seven wives of the previous king whose lives were cut in their prime. No doubt, the decision noticeably distresses Amaka and even Adejundoye. It also threatens their bond and what they deeply share not as husband and wife but as intentional lovers whose lives have been ‘rosy’ before ascending kingship. Somehow, they navigate past the hurdle by reaching a compromise where amidst tears, both promise not to leave each other. This decision of theirs becomes tested when the six wives start behaving unruly to take the number one spot of Amaka---the reality of many women whose husbands have side chics.

For the record, a critical mind at this point may feel the story is slipping into anti-climax with the introduction of side B of the travails of Adejundoye which is a must fight with Esusu, the spirit of the herbalist his forefather disgraced and forcefully sent out of Ilara. Truth be told, how it is woven and linked to the survival of his son is quite commendable but the lesson here is the reality of many people today. Believe it or not, there are ancestral battles brought about by the pride and sometimes silliness of certain people in one’s bloodline that hamper the good life many people should live today. Until those battles are fought and won in the realm of the spirit like we see Adejundoye do, whatever victories they have won’t be long-lasting. You still wonder why many Christians do warfare prayers?         

Anyway, having considered a bit of the flaws, Seven Doors, in our opinion here at TIL Magazine, rates high in the parameters that would have rendered the collaborative efforts of everyone on the project a child’s play. Congratulations to 360 Euphoria and Femi Adebayo on this one.