Out in the Darkness: A Meditation on Postpartum Pain

In Out in the Darkness, debut director Sarah Kwaji sets out to illuminate a dark and often unspoken reality: the mental and emotional collapse that can follow childbirth. With Kehinde Bankole at its centre, the film dives into postpartum depression and psychosis with sincerity, but struggles to maintain emotional tension across its slow and often repetitive runtime. It’s a film that carries the right heart and the right message, but lacks the narrative grip to make that message land with power.

The Stillness of Suffering

Bolu (Kehinde Bankole) has just given birth to her second child, but the joy everyone expects of her never comes. She’s exhausted. Her baby’s constant cries wear her down. She doesn’t want to hold the child, can’t bring herself to soothe it. And as her body rests, her mind doesn’t. Her husband Nasiha (Deyemi Okanlawon) remains supportive, present, and patient, but even his tenderness can’t bridge the gap that Bolu’s condition creates.

From its very first moments — the cries of a newborn from brith, the late-night fatigue, the refusal to get up — the film communicates Bolu’s emotional detachment with honesty and sharpness. But it’s the silences and framing that create unease. The way she hovers over the balcony. The way she stares at her child, or loosely wraps a cloth around the baby’s head. These aren’t plot points; they’re visual cues that hint at how close she might be to snapping. There’s no horror music, no dramatic signal, just still, quiet tension that lingers.

Purposeful Pacing or Narrative Drift?

The film knows exactly what it wants to talk about, and it takes its time doing so. This is both a strength and a weakness. The script insists on walking us through every beat of Bolu’s decline: the awkward doctor visits, the loneliness, the growing disconnect between her and everyone around her. There’s value in that detail. But at some point, the film begins to feel like it’s circling itself. It’s slow, not because the story demands it, but because it doesn’t know when to shift.

After the first 45 minutes, we already know where Bolu is emotionally. The problem is, the film doesn’t push beyond that. We wait. We watch. And eventually, the emotional intensity begins to fade. The story feels padded, not deepened. The screenplay mistakes repetition for insight. It doesn’t ask us to read between the lines; it keeps repeating the lines.

Performances That Anchor, and Almost Save, the Film

Kehinde Bankole plays Bolu with quiet precision. She doesn’t overact. Her performance is simple, calm, yet clearly frayed. You can see her exhaustion without her needing to say it. It’s the way she breathes. The way she holds the baby without affection. The way she responds slowly, if at all, to the people around her. Deyemi Okanlawon as Nasiha is tender and grounded, showing what it means to support someone you don’t understand. Tina Mba and Cassandra Odita as Bolu’s mother and mother-in-law embody two cultural viewpoints: both defaulting to spirituality, with one dragging Bolu to a white garment church, and the other insinuating Bolu is a bad mother.

The film captures the reality of Nigerian families reacting to mental illness — confusion. Their well-meaning interventions end up being isolating. This is one of the film’s strongest points: the way it reflects societal misunderstanding without turning any character into a villain.

Final Thoughts

Out in the Darkness is an important film. It’s sensitive, topical, and rooted in reality. It has its heart in the right place and never veers into exploitation. Sarah Kwaji’s ambition is clear. She wants to confront the silence surrounding postpartum depression in Nigeria. She wants us to feel how helpless and invisible women like Bolu can become. But her execution often stalls. It begins to feel more like a drawn-out awareness campaign than a narrative. There’s a documentary feel to the second half, not in style, but in repetition and structure.

The film tries to keep things subtle, but in doing so, it also feels static. It makes you observe, not participate. The pacing doesn’t draw you in; it leaves you on the outside looking in. It’s emotionally important, but dramatically underwhelming. For a film about a psychological crisis, it doesn’t grip the mind as much as it should.

Verdict

A necessary film that opens an important conversation, but its slow, unfocused storytelling keeps it from hitting the emotional highs it deserves.

Rating:3/5