Viewing Mambar Pierrette as a character study allows us to see how the economic, political, and social systems of Cameroon manifest in everyday life. After a long day working at her shop, Pierrette decides to get home by motorcycle taxi. As they are riding, Pierrette notices that the driver is taking a route she is not familiar with. Suddenly, the driver pulls over on a dark street where his co-conspirators robbed Pierrette of all her money and phone, leaving her in the rain. Pierrette’s robbery is an experience that is more commonplace than it should be. It reflects the general insecurity felt around the country, where people are willing to do anything to get money, even resorting to crime.

As fatigue and frustration set in, Pierrette knows that she still has a family to take care of, but she needs help. That is when she decides to turn towards the tontine, an informal financial system that allows people who cannot get money from banks to take out a loan. A tontine is a traditional system where people with close social links make monetary contributions into a fund at fixed intervals and then take turns collecting the total amount or just parts of it. In the film, Pierrette approaches a friend asking if she could take out a loan from the tontine. The friend tells her that many people have been taking loans from the tontine recently, and only about 100,000 CFA is left. Pierrette asks if she could have that. This scene is a window into the hardships that befall the people around Pierrette. A tontine is supposed to regenerate regularly, but if multiple hands are feeding from the pot, how sustainable is it meant to be? And what does it say about an economic system where many have a hard time landing on their feet?

The cornerstone of a progressing society is its ability to care for its people when they need help the most. In Pierrette’s case, the social services that she thought she could rely on ended up failing her. Her first attempt at getting aid from the local church proves futile, as she is told that they are prioritizing refugees at the moment. This, again, speaks to systemic and social issues. The government is incapable of helping their citizens who are struggling; how are they managing to help refugees?

Pierrette’s last resort—a choice that she tried to avoid completely—is to report her children’s father to social services. In an earlier scene, her mother tries to discourage from doing that, telling her that, ‘We’ve all been through the same thing. We never went and complained.’ Perhaps, that speaks to a larger generational conflict. For so long, women were taught to endure, no matter how bad the circumstances, and that narrative continues to be passed down. But Pierrette wishes to break that cycle. She does not understand why her mother, who sees that the father of her children does not do anything to help financially, could expect her to just inherit this pattern of silence. She even asks her mother, ‘Do you love him more than me?’ The rift in ideologies between mother and daughter is never combative, however, and in the end, Pierrette sticks to her decision to go to social services.

Towards the end of the film, Pierrette is visited by a friend who tells her about an opportunity to gain money: participating in a rally for President Paul Biya for 2,500 CFA. This immediately angers Pierrette, whose ire is not aimed at the friend but more so at the state of the country asking its citizens to rally behind the president when most are suffering at the hands of a government not doing anything concrete to help them out. It is a poignant moment in the film where everything that Pierrette experienced within the last couple of days had bubbled up to the surface. She is tired and frustrated and rightfully so.