There’s a version of Everything Is New Again that could work. A 45-year-old woman falls for a 27-year-old man, and the film explores what that means for both of them. But Chinaza Onuzo’s latest doesn’t become that film. It talks around the premise without ever really committing to it, leaving you with a romance that feels more like an idea than an actual relationship.
Mercy Aigbe plays Funmi, a woman spiraling after watching her ex-husband’s wedding to a younger woman blow up on social media. Her friend Iveren drags her to a beach resort to clear her head, and there she meets Ekene, a photographer played by Vine Olugu. They hit it off, and what follows is supposed to be a love story that challenges expectations about age and relationships.
The first problem is that Aigbe and Olugu don’t convince you they’re actually falling for each other. Their initial meeting at the resort tries for that movie-magic moment where two people lock eyes and something shifts. It falls flat. You’ve seen this beat in countless films, and this version brings nothing new to it. The actors go through the motions, but there’s no heat, no pull between them that makes you understand why these two people would risk what they’re about to risk.
The stronger scenes happen when the film stops focusing on the couple. Ekene’s friends find out he’s dating an older woman and confront him about throwing away his scholarship to stay in Lagos. The conversation has bite because the concern feels genuine. These aren’t people moralizing about age gaps, they’re watching their friend make a choice that could derail his future, and they’re calling it out. It’s one of the few times the film acknowledges that decisions have consequences beyond hurt feelings.
Ngozi Nwosu shows up for one scene as Ekene’s mother and immediately becomes the most interesting person on screen. She walks into her son’s apartment, meets Funmi, and doesn’t say much. She doesn’t have to. The way she looks at Funmi says everything, and you feel Funmi shrink under that gaze. It’s a masterclass in doing more with less, and it makes you wish Nwosu had been given a bigger role.
Gbemi Akinlade, playing Funmi’s teenage daughter, brings a similar clarity. She’s more grounded than any of the adults around her, which creates a weird dynamic where the teenager feels like the only person thinking straight. That might be intentional, showing how Funmi’s unraveling, but it also undermines the idea that Funmi is a capable woman who’s just been knocked off balance by her ex’s wedding.
Then there’s the birthday party scene where Funmi slaps her ex-husband’s new wife in front of everyone. It’s dramatic, but it doesn’t go anywhere. You’d expect Ekene to pull back after seeing Funmi lose control like that in public. Instead, the film just moves past it. The scene exists for shock value without serving the story, which sums up a lot of what’s wrong with Everything Is New Again. Moments happen, but they don’t build into anything.
The way the film writes Funmi is part of the problem. She’s supposed to be 45, successful, someone who’s lived enough life to know herself. But the way Aigbe plays her, with constant self-doubt and almost childlike reactions to setbacks, makes her feel younger than her daughter. Meanwhile, Ekene is written with a seriousness that doesn’t match being 27. The film keeps calling him a child, but nothing about his behavior backs that up. It’s like the script couldn’t figure out how to balance the age difference, so it just flattened both characters until the gap barely registered.
If the film didn’t keep reminding you they’re 18 years apart, you might forget entirely. That’s not because the actors look similar in age. It’s because the film doesn’t explore what being at different life stages actually means. They don’t argue about wanting different things. They don’t struggle with having different cultural references or approaches to problems. The conflict stays surface-level, other people objecting, but never between them in ways that feel specific to their ages.
This creates a repetitive structure. Someone objects to the relationship. The film introduces a separate problem to distract from the age issue. That problem gets solved. Then someone else objects, and the pattern repeats. It’s exhausting because nothing accumulates. Each conflict gets resolved in isolation, which means by the time the film ends, you haven’t watched a story build. You’ve watched a series of disconnected episodes pretending to be a movie.
The production feels uneven. Some scenes look polished, others feel like they were shot quickly without much thought. The cinematography does its job but doesn’t add anything. It’s all functional without being memorable.
What bothers me most is that Everything Is New Again had real potential. Age-gap romances where the woman is older get made so rarely that when one comes along, you want it to work. You want it to ask hard questions about why we treat these relationships differently, about what desire looks like at different ages, about how people navigate judgment when they’re just trying to be happy. This film mentions those questions but never sits with them long enough to find answers.
Instead, it keeps smoothing over anything that might make you uncomfortable. Funmi and Ekene’s relationship never feels risky because the film won’t let it be risky. Every sharp edge gets filed down until what’s left is safe and boring. By the end, nothing about their story feels bold or worth defending. It’s just two people who like each other, and the film never makes a case for why that’s enough.
I kept waiting for Everything Is New Again to commit to something, anything, but it never does. It wants to be a romance about an unconventional couple without actually being unconventional. It wants to critique society’s judgment without showing that judgment in ways that matter. It wants you to root for Funmi and Ekene without giving you reasons to care whether they stay together.
The result is a film that feels hollow. Pretty people in nice locations having problems that get solved too easily. There’s no lasting impression, nothing that sticks with you after it’s over. For a film titled Everything Is New Again, nothing here feels new at all.
Release Date: January 30, 2026
Runtime: Approximately 2 hours
Streaming Service: Theatrical release
Directed by: Chinaza Onuzo
Cast: Mercy Aigbe, Vine Olugu, Nancy Isime, Desmond Elliot, Ngozi Nwosu, Gbemi Akinlade, Olumide Oworu