Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Lobola Man’ on Netflix, A Breezy, Easy Rom-Com From South Africa

In Lobola Man, now streaming on Netflix, a self-described player makes his living as a negotiator of lobola, monetizing in his favor the traditional South African cultural practice of compensating a bride’s family before a marriage. He has no interest in getting hitched himself, but is happy to lie in service of someone else taking the plunge. “For the right price, you get the right price” reads the business card Ace hands to prospective husbands. But his slick operation in Johannesburg is about to crash head-on into romantic comedy vibes emanating straight from Hollywood. Will Ace get in, get out, and get paid like usual? Or will he catch the kind of feelings that finally open his eyes to what really matters? Katleho Ramaphakela, who wrote Lobola Man, also directed the recent South African Netflix rom-com Seriously Single.    

LOBOLA MAN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist: Ace Ngubeni (Lawrence Maleka) is forever in hustle/haggle mode. It defines his sex life, his occupation as a lobola negotiator, even his interactions with the samosa guy down in Johannesburg’s retail plaza. We get a sense of his hectic everyday early on, when Ace mistakenly offers to call his latest paramour an Uber – “You’re in my apartment, asshole” – before chameloning his look to ingratiate himself with the family of his latest client. Pretending to be the man’s family member, he talks the bride-to-be’s family into accepting a price, everybody’s happy, and Ace moves on to his next set of conquests. Ace’s buddy observes the oddness of this, the lying for a living. And especially in order to get people together, since Ace himself has been no commitment-coded for his entire life. 

While Duke (Sandile Mahlangu) is the successful developer of a dating app, he’s an eager-to-please pushover in his relationship with fiancee Zandile (Kwanele Mthethwa). Well, not quite fiancee, not yet. Zandi’s dad is super traditional, and “the lobola situation” has not been discussed. While Duke frets over how to handle it – “It doesn’t help that he hates my guts,” Duke tells his lovely work colleague Rachel (Sthandile Nkosi) – Ace is at the club, trying to fast-talk his latest target. This is where the rom-com rules kick in. Duke hires Ace. Duke lies to Zandile that his “long-lost cousin” will handle the deliberations over lobola. And Zandi is exactly who Ace was flirting with at that club. Uh-oh!

The lie grows in size over a long weekend, even as Ace’s growing feelings for Zandi clog up his ability to butter up Duke to her wealthy parents. The arrogant negotiator and strong-willed fiancee find themselves actually getting to know each other and not just arguing. And the cosmic circumstances of the rom-com galaxy conspire to separate them from Duke, who conveniently must work late at the office with the assistance of Rachel. By now, Ace’s big plan for fibbing toward a lobola payday is looking pretty rickety, and the crew he’s hired as “relatives” – Thembsie Matu (“Auntie Miriam”), Obed Baloyi (“Uncle Long John”), and Sello Ramolahloane (“Bra Biza”) in bumbling comic relief – threaten to expose the whole operation in front of Zandile, her parents, and her real relatives. You can see what’s going down from more than a mile away. But if everybody looks great, and there’s more than enough breezy banter on the way to those familiar outcomes, then that just might be enough to stick with Ace, Duke, Zandile, Rachel, and Lobola Man.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Remember Hitch? Because the 2005 Will Smith vehicle is a great example of the tone and format of Lobola Man, with Smith’s dating doctor switched out for Lawrence Maleka’s lobola negotiator. But you could also throw any number of chase-your-love-to-the-airport romantic comedy moments into this hopper. Lobola Man takes them all on with a light touch that’s as slick as Ace likes to think he is. 

Performance Worth Watching: Sandile Mahlangu, recently of How To Ruin Christmas on Netflix, is really funny here as Duke, the aspiring fiance who’s somehow tongue-tied while simultaneously being a notorious overtalker.   

Memorable Dialogue: “The first rule of negotiation,” Ace says of his oft-repeated operating principle in a lobola-for-hire operation, “is get in, get out, before it gets messy.” He’s smooth, he’s cocky, and he’s got it down to a science. Only thing is that this time around, it’s definitely gonna get messy.

Sex and Skin: Not sex and skin so much as those familiar and opportunistic romantic comedy moments. You know, anticipatory. Like: Wait, are they going to…will they…that would mean that…but maybe they should…

Our Take: The arguments in Lobola Man are as light as the stakes. Combine this with the charm and rapport of a cast that alternates comfortably between Zulu and English, as well as the traditional conceit at the heart of the film, and you’ve got a standard-issue romantic comedy with more that enough distinct style to stand on its own as an easily consumable end-of-the-week watch. When Ace gathers the eccentrics who will serve as fake relatives, you love to see Thembsie Matu as Miriam, horndogging after Zandile’s uncle, and Sello Ramolahloane as Bra Biza, whose wish to method act as a mute is naturally blown out of the water by Zandi’s dad’s ability to sign. You love to learn that Duke is not only chronically seasick, but prone to allergic reactions to seasick medicine, even as he’s supposed to be impressing Zandi’s father with his deep sea fishing skills. And you love to learn from Zandi’s wise bestie that the way she gets so worked up about Ace runs counter to the kind of man she usually dates, because it’s a potential match right out of the romantic comedy playbook. Familiarity is just fine when it’s produced and presented with skill, and you aren’t looking for anything heavy.

Our Call: STREAM IT. With its light touch, pretty people, and perfectly predictable proceedings, Lobola Man feels like it was built to please in a Hollywood romantic comedy laboratory. Which, sometimes, is exactly the kind of low-stakes watch that’s required.

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.