This review was initially published after the 2019 Venice Film Festival premiere of “The Perfect Candidate.”
As someone with a side gig on the programming team of an LGBT film festival, I’ve noticed that, while the coming-out drama is often tired and clichéd coming from American filmmakers, it can be thrilling when one is produced a part of the world where an honest conversation about queer lives is in its early stages.
It’s not a put-down, then, when I say that Saudi Arabia’s “The Perfect Candidate” reminds me of a cycle of Jane Fonda films from the 1970s and 80s — notably “Coming Home,” “The China Syndrome” and “9 to 5” — where she plays women who fight back against their understanding of the world and discover their own voices in the process. And Jane never had to do it while wearing a niqab.
With exquisite subtlety, director Haifaa Al...
As someone with a side gig on the programming team of an LGBT film festival, I’ve noticed that, while the coming-out drama is often tired and clichéd coming from American filmmakers, it can be thrilling when one is produced a part of the world where an honest conversation about queer lives is in its early stages.
It’s not a put-down, then, when I say that Saudi Arabia’s “The Perfect Candidate” reminds me of a cycle of Jane Fonda films from the 1970s and 80s — notably “Coming Home,” “The China Syndrome” and “9 to 5” — where she plays women who fight back against their understanding of the world and discover their own voices in the process. And Jane never had to do it while wearing a niqab.
With exquisite subtlety, director Haifaa Al...
- 5/15/2021
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
A lot has changed in Saudi Arabia since Haifaa Al-Mansour last made a film in her home country. Wadjda, Al-Mansour’s 2012 debut, was the first feature shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, and since then she’s worked in the US (Nappily Ever After) and UK (Mary Shelley). In the interim, Saudi Arabia passed laws that allowed cinemas to open in the country, women gained the right to vote, and in 2018 the country finally allowed women to drive. The Perfect Candidate, Al-Mansour’s keenly observed new film, examines a society in which women are acclimatizing to increased agency but still have a long way to go to equal rights.
A woman’s right behind the wheel hangs over the opening shot, which sees Dr. Maryam Alsafan (Mila Al Zahrani) drive up a muddy, disheveled road to the hospital where she works. Her shiny blue vehicle allows her the agency of traveling to and from work.
A woman’s right behind the wheel hangs over the opening shot, which sees Dr. Maryam Alsafan (Mila Al Zahrani) drive up a muddy, disheveled road to the hospital where she works. Her shiny blue vehicle allows her the agency of traveling to and from work.
- 5/13/2021
- by Orla Smith
- The Film Stage
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