“Devil is a Liar” Wastes Its Chance at Meaningful Commentary on Marriage

A more fitting title for this Netflix drama might be A Fall From Success, a deliberate nod to Tyler Perry’s A Fall From Grace. Both stories orbit around accomplished older women who fall into the snares of younger, opportunistic men. But where Perry’s film leans into melodrama, Devil is a Liar stumbles over its ambition, never quite deciding what story it wants to tell. The betrayals pile up without direction: Jaiye’s (James Gardiner) seduction of Adaora (Nse Ikpe-Etim), his clandestine relationship with his cousin, and the fake death scheme that collapses during her holiday. Each thread could have anchored the film, but instead, they clash, leaving audiences confused. The supporting cast, thinly drawn, fades into the background, making Ikpe-Etim’s layered performance feel like a wasted anchor in an unsteady ship.

Yet beneath the messy scaffolding lies an important commentary. The film exposes a truth often brushed aside in Nigerian society: the framing of marriage as a woman’s ultimate validation. It shows how this cultural script can override intuition, making women ignore glaring red flags in pursuit of romantic acceptance. Devil is a Liar’s sharpest insight is not in its predictable plot twists but in its dissection of a society where single women are endlessly judged, and predators weaponize that desperation.

Adaora’s arc reflects how success and intelligence offer little defense against cultural conditioning that equates worth with marital status. In showing how easily that conditioning can be exploited, the film hits on the cost of a culture that still defines women by the rings on their fingers.

The film wastes no time in establishing its central theme. At her sister’s (Nancy Isime) marriage introduction, Adaora—despite her wealth and professional accomplishments—becomes the subject of sharp social scrutiny. Her stepmother’s pointed reminders about her unmarried status and advancing age underscore how success in every sphere still collapses in the face of cultural expectations. What makes this moment especially potent is Adaora’s own internalization of these pressures. She comes to believe that marriage and motherhood are not just milestones but obligations tied to honoring her late mother’s memory. 

This anxiety drives Adaora into a frantic pursuit of companionship, moving from one date to the next with growing desperation. Her vulnerability primes her for Jaiye, whose whirlwind proposal just two months into their relationship should have raised alarm bells. Yet the film demonstrates, albeit with flaws, how social pressure can distort judgment, making even the most accomplished women susceptible to manipulation.

Marriage accelerates Adaora’s unraveling. Jaiye’s manipulative patterns emerge with his sudden refusal to have children, contradicting her long-held desires. Then his failing business ventures which drain her finances, and his persistent probing into her assets. Adaora refuses to pay attention to these red flags and clings to the validation her marriage provides.

The true tragedy is not in her naivety but in the cultural machinery that primes her for exploitation. Adaora’s willingness to endure blatant manipulation speaks to a society where the optics of marital success outweigh personal happiness or safety. By showing how external expectations hollow out internal agency, the film delivers a piercing critique of how Nigeria’s marriage-centric culture transforms intelligent women into casualties of their own need for acceptance.

Ephesians 5:22 proclaims that “the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church”—a verse too often weaponized to entrench patriarchal control. Yet this selective reading exposes a glaring contradiction: if husbands are truly called to lead, why does the burden of blame for marital collapse consistently fall on women? When marriages falter, society instinctively scrutinizes wives, rarely holding husbands accountable for their failures. The outcome is a culture that traps women in toxic unions, where leaving signifies personal defeat rather than survival.

The cost is devastating. Many women endure abuse to avoid stigma, sacrificing autonomy, dignity, and even life itself in marriages that demand submission at all costs. Adaora’s plight—forced to consider an abortion under threat of abandonment—echoes the countless women coerced into impossible choices between self-preservation and societal approval. 

At its most extreme, this system breeds femicide and gender-based violence. Gender-based violence against Nigerian women has escalated into a full-blown crisis, with domestic homicides occurring at an alarming, almost rhythmic pace. On March 19 in Lagos, 38-year-old mother of three, Mrs. Peter Dike, was fatally stabbed by her husband, becoming the 43rd documented femicide victim of 2025. Barely five months later, on August 27, that toll more than doubled: 100th victim, Glory Ubong Uwak, died from complications of a fractured skull allegedly inflicted by her husband, whose violent history toward her was known.

These figures, meticulously tracked by DOHS Cares Foundation, an anti-GBV organization, expose only a fraction of the epidemic. Nigeria’s chronic data gaps mean many women never make it into the records, their deaths swallowed by stigma, underreporting, and the culture of silence that enables abuse to thrive unchecked. The leap from 43 deaths in March to 100 in August underscores a grave problem. While some of these fatalities weren’t caused by domestic violence, an alarming number were. Each statistic is a woman whose life was extinguished after patterns of abuse were ignored by communities who could have intervened.

Society must urgently dismantle the notion of marriage as a woman’s ultimate achievement and reframe it as one choice among many. The surge in conversations around egg freezing as insurance against singlehood, coupled with viral TikTok tutorials on “keeping a man” or securing proposals, perpetuates a toxic narrative: that a woman’s worth is tethered to her ability to marry. For young girls, especially, these messages harden into truths that define their value and limit their horizons.

But the consequences of this marriage-centric culture are not merely psychological; they are often fatal. The case of gospel singer Osinachi Nwachukwu underscores this. Despite enduring years of abuse, she stayed in a marriage that ultimately claimed her life. From a young age, mothers tell their daughters, “Endure this, you’re a woman.” And that is why women like Osinachi are forced into impossible situations: speak out and risk exile from the community and social shame, or remain silent and risk their lives. That such choices even exist reveals how warped our social priorities have become, where the façade of marital success outweighs the sanctity of human life.

Breaking this cycle demands nothing less than cultural reprogramming. Girls should be raised not on lessons about pleasing or securing men, but on building independence, identifying abuse, and understanding that a life without marriage is whole and worthy. Only when marriage ceases to be central to women’s identity can safety and autonomy become their true priorities. The viral content glamorizing male validation and marriage strategies is not benign but cultural indoctrination that places women in harm’s way. And challenging it is not optional; it is an urgent, life-saving act.

Produced by Esse Odometa and Moses Inwang, Devil is a Liar possesses the foundation to deliver social commentary, but ultimately squanders its potential. The film could have explored the psychological devastation of forced abortion—the grief, trauma, and long-term emotional consequences. Instead, it opts for the medically implausible and dramatically lazy plot devices of Adaora losing her womb, reducing a complex social issue to convenient drama.

However, the film’s failures shouldn’t overshadow its value as a conversation starter. Despite its flawed execution, Devil is a Liar succeeds in making visible the intersection of tradition, social pressure, and women’s limited agency in contemporary Nigerian society. It demonstrates how cultural expectations around marriage can transform love into manipulation and companionship into control.

Perhaps the film’s greatest contribution lies not in its storytelling but in its ability to spark necessary discussions about femicide, domestic abuse, and the social conditioning that traps women in dangerous relationships. While viewers deserved better craftsmanship, they can still extract meaningful dialogue about the urgent need to decenter marriage from women’s identity. In this sense, even an imperfect film can catalyze the cultural transformation society needs.