Review: ‘Lady’ takes a cab through the neon nightlife of Lagos
2026 / Dir. Olive Nwosu / 2026 Sundance Film Festival
Rating: 3.5/5
Watch if you like: Hustlers meets Atlantics, movies where the protagonist is trying to save money in a secret hiding spot to get out of town, and you know where it’s going but still hope for the best.
Lagos’s eye-popping colors look outstanding in Lady, Olive Nwosu’s full-length debut, but Lagos looks even better at night, soaked in rich neon hues.
The film is set against one of the many economic protests in Nigeria after the government let fuel prices skyrocket to save money while hurting everyday people, including the titular protagonist (Jessica Gabriel’s Ujah), a tough-as-nails cab driver trying to make ends meet and squirrel enough away to escape Nigeria for Sierra Leone’s Freetown. When a long-absent childhood friend, Pinky (Amanda Oruh), reenters her life with a lucrative offer to drive her and other high-end sex workers to the nightly parties of rich men who live in excess—while the rest of the country suffers—it could be Lady’s ticket out of town.
Packed full of more ideas than a 93-minute movie can tackle and some out-of-nowhere third-act drama, Lady works best as the story of a woman learning to be an active participant in her troubled society. Seen first in an upside-down perspective shift, Lady is joyful and playful when by herself in her tiny room, rapping to herself in the mirror, but clearly uncomfortable in the world around her. She’s repulsed by the women she drives at night—all of the actresses have terrific chemistry with each other—and puzzled by her fellow cab drivers who respect her and urge her to protest with them. It’s these interactions that make Lady more successful than not and create a vivid picture of a country where everyone’s just trying to make it work. And uniting together to take back power from the ultra-rich isn’t a half-bad idea.