Director: Thabang Moleya (Happiness is a Four-letter word, The Herd)

Screenwriter: Ayanda Halimana 

Producers: Bongiwe Selane (Happiness is a Four-letter word, Nomalanga and the Witch)

Synopsis: The glamorous Happiness friends are back close to four years after we left them. We join them for  another journey of self-discovery and re-evaluation as life throws new challenges at them.  

Opening with women in David Tlale boutique and strutting out in the luxurious Melrose Arch precinct was exactly the perfect way to set the tone for this movie. You get the sense of the movie and the feel-good nature in the opening scene.

I watched the premier at the event organised by Netflix and between the energy in the space and the cheering during scenes that either upset us or made us throw our hands in the air from frustration, it was clear I wasn’t the only one that felt the notion of being tossed from joy, happiness, to frustration and anger.

“The sequel lives independently from the book but obviously with some of the old characters returning to bring more drama and more sizzle in the sequel. “

Khanyi Mbau

Princess and Zaza (Renate Stuurman and Khanyi Mbau) are part of the original cast of Happiness is a Four-Letter Word on this sequel, they are rounded off well by Nambitha Ben-Mazwi who plays Zimkitha.

In this sequel produced by Bongiwe Selane, written by Ayanda Halimana and again directed by Thabang Moleya, your emotions will be tossed between the Princess and her turmoil at the return of her former drug addict baby daddy who pulled a disappearing act when she was pregnant; Zaza has trouble of her own as her late husband’s sister is in town to torment her following the death of her brother, so in true stereotypical African sister inlaw fashion, she is here to claim all that ‘belongs’ to her brother; and lastly, the new addition that is the gorgeous Zimkitha (Zim), she is a newly to Jozi, a yogi as well as florist, and here to try her hand at a new business, she finds love that… well… is a bit rocky, as Yonda, portrayed by Yonda Thomas is a completely commitment-phobic techie.

The journeys and ending leaves you with very different perspectives of each of the three ladies’ idea of happy and closes off this particular chapter for us.

Though… There’s a gap to further close Princesses story… surely she deserves a happy ending too?

Can she keep things flowing with the man that stepped up (Maxwell played by Daniel Effiong) when Leo returns years after walking out on her whilst pregnant? Will she close the chapter on Leo (played by Richard Lukunku) eventually?

Well… Maybe we’ll see in the next sequel should there be one. On this one, we catch a glimpse of the turmoil.

“We wanted to take audiences somewhere new. The story picks up 5 years later from where we left our characters and it is on all of us (the cast, the producers, the crew) to take our audiences somewhere new. ”

Renate Stuurman