You won't be disappointed!

Waste of time

Purely Joyful Movie!

An Exercise In Nonsense

The movie starts with a man and his daughter driving into town. At first his daughter is driving but as soon as they get to town the dad starts driving because it is illegal for women to drive. This sets the tone for the movie. We come to the fathers second wedding, so he has two wives now. He leaves the first wife with the kids at a house and goes to a new house with the new wife. He is absent much of the movie but comes back to meet the boy his daughter loves. He scares the boy away, never to be seen for the rest of the movie. And forces his daughter, Layla, to marry Munir, a man from the town. Layla starts to run but right before she gets to her boyfriend she stops her car and goes back because she realizes that she really can't run anywhere.

This film depicts a Bedouin family on the brink of changing traditions.When the father of the family takes a second wife, and the daughter finds herself in love with a boy from college. Each character must make decisions that will change the outcome of the family. Although a main theme is about woman living in world of strict traditions I think it is mainly about a family trying to make the right decisions for each other.Throughout the film the director will turn you against the adults, and then give you a window of insight that will allow you to sympathize with them. I was constantly urging the characters to do something, on the end of the seat, and although the film left me a little sad you must look beyond the film, to what it is trying to hint the future may hold, not just for the protagonists, but all woman around the world.I will certainly be thinking about Layla, her sister and what life has in hold for them, for a while.

Overall, I give this film a rating of 2.5 stars out of 5. I did not really enjoy it, but there were parts that I did enjoy. I thought that all of the actors were very talented and good at playing their roles. I liked the story line and how the film incorporated both traditional and modern elements. For example, the fact that Layla was in an arranged marriage is very traditional. However, the charters often had iPhones throughout the film, which was interesting for someone like me to see, as someone who lives in the US where technology is extremely important and a part of everyday life, but I would never even consider an arranged marriage as a part of life- because it is not, and is so rare for me to even see. So, for this film to have BOTH of these things as an important part of life was cool and definitely a new (global) perspective. Although, I did find the story line really confusing at times and what was going on. I think that it would've helped and been less confusing if the man that Layla was in love with and wanted to marry was a more prominent character. There was a lot of talk about him (good and bad) but once he finally showed up in the film towards the middle, he only popped in for a little and left (me) with the impression that he was going to make things better for him and Layla by convincing her parents to let him marry her (which didn't happen but I wish it did!) Speaking of the ending, I did not like it! I just wish there was a LITTLE more dialogue! I wish Layla would've looked at her sister who was peeking through at them, and reassured her that everything would be okay, because the three little sisters were really the real victims in this film, as well as Layla since they were all caught in the middle.

The film follows the struggle of a young Bedouin girl and her will to be free of old traditions that try to keep her caged in a man's world. The main plot follows Jalila (Ruba Blal-Asfour), the first wife of a man that is trapped under the pressure of having a new young wife join the clan. Her daughter, Layla (Lamis Ammar), has a secret lover at school, and Jalila must decide if she is part of the mechanism that will trap her daughter too or going to fight for the next generation to have more than she could ever dream of. The brave directing and storytelling brings to the screen a complex story, exhibiting female struggles from a very specific perspective yet in a very universal way. It is not by chance that the film has had such a successful festival circuit.