Half of a Yellow Sun: only Freddie Forsyth and the Bodenesque tribalwear rescue this snoozefest

I’m not one of those who automatically think the book’s better than the film. Efficiency is a good thing and if a film can successfully cram 500 pages into two hours, it’s to be applauded. We all have things to do. So, I was looking forward to watching Thandie Newton and Chiwetel Ejiofor in a refresher course on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Orange Prize winner, Half of a Yellow Sun.

The film, set in the late 1960s in Nigeria during the civil war, follows two twin sisters from a wealthy Igbo family. Olanna is headstrong and principled (a suitably brittle Newton) while Kainene is sassy and practical (a sexy Anika Noni Rose). The former ends up with an idealistic academic Odenigbo, played by Ejiofor, and is shuttled around Nigeria as they flee the spreading turmoil. The latter falls in love with a white journalist. At first she takes charge of her father’s business but then devotes her efforts to the management of a refugee camp in the short-lived state of Biafra.