I went into the movie theater with an open mind. And I forced myself to sit through all of it, even though I was the only person there. I feel like I should have waited until after the 1st to watch this because then I could have said that my New Year's Resolution would be to sit through all of this thing, and I would have felt that I accomplished something at the end of the movie.
If you didn't know already, this movie is about race more than culture. It is presented as a cultural story about an Afghan immigrant vs. The US, but the director has already deconstructed the history into a story about a non-white character vs. White America. I truly don't understand why someone would choose to tell this story with so much attempted humor... if you really think about it, there is nothing humorous about the experiences of the main character. There is especially no humor that should be presented in a dry manner. I would personally feel disrespected if this is how my story was told, but that's just me. These types of stories have been done before by other directors of old in a much more successful manner, even with humor involved. One good thing is that this movie does not come off as abrasive as similar stories (i.e. The Angry Black Girl And Her Monster), but it is nevertheless the same hyperbolic story being retold in an analogous manner.
The bottom line is that the movie is as boring as watching paint dry or water boil. It is black and white cinematography (quite subtle eh?) with 20-30 year old humor that is poorly executed with consistently cheap, tropey, far from subtle racism that sells the idea that every white American that a non-white non-American has a conversation with will result in the white American viewing the non-white non-American as a novelty while living a totally ignorant existence as a person who fails to realize how their words affect any other person -- imagine if a racist Leslie Nielsen was in a totally boring version of Naked Gun in which the cops targeted racial minority criminals simply because of their skin color... would that even be funny?
This movie falls into a growing untitled category of movies that attempts to paint a certain class of people as living meager lives while walking around and staring into space, yet somehow manage to absorb knowledge from the thin air around them and manage to know more than the people that they reach out to for help - such as in this movie when the woman knows more than the doctor that they visited for help, completely negating any reason for the woman to visit the doctor in the first place! The only reason for the scene is to show that white American doctors do not have the best interest in mind for non-white non-American immigrants, AND do not have the intelligence required to be a doctor, AND happen to also be completely racist! If you want to see what I mean, you honestly don't have to view the movie... you can simply watch the trailer, when the doctor considers the dog from White Fang to be an immigrant -- totally believable that a man with 8+ years in medicine school who the main character pays to analyze them in a therapy session is ironically too dumb to know what an immigrant is. I'm sure this scene is funny at some point in history at some place on the planet, but nobody in the theater laughed.
Btw, I was the only person in the theater.
I really think that in 50 years people will look back at this movie and others like it with disgust that Hollywood created this garbage. The main character in this movie has been created from cultural misappropriation, but presented in a manner that attempts to convince the viewer that the story is being told in a genuine manner. But if you look beneath the black and white of the movie, you will discover thin veins of bland British comedy. I look forward to the day that this story about a poor Afghan girl with PTSD will be told in a genuine way that doesn't involve cultural misappropriation.
If you are the type of person that likes to slowly wade through mud from one side of a creek to another to find something interesting, then you should go for it...if you find this film on the bank, just realize that its probably there for a reason.
If you didn't know already, this movie is about race more than culture. It is presented as a cultural story about an Afghan immigrant vs. The US, but the director has already deconstructed the history into a story about a non-white character vs. White America. I truly don't understand why someone would choose to tell this story with so much attempted humor... if you really think about it, there is nothing humorous about the experiences of the main character. There is especially no humor that should be presented in a dry manner. I would personally feel disrespected if this is how my story was told, but that's just me. These types of stories have been done before by other directors of old in a much more successful manner, even with humor involved. One good thing is that this movie does not come off as abrasive as similar stories (i.e. The Angry Black Girl And Her Monster), but it is nevertheless the same hyperbolic story being retold in an analogous manner.
The bottom line is that the movie is as boring as watching paint dry or water boil. It is black and white cinematography (quite subtle eh?) with 20-30 year old humor that is poorly executed with consistently cheap, tropey, far from subtle racism that sells the idea that every white American that a non-white non-American has a conversation with will result in the white American viewing the non-white non-American as a novelty while living a totally ignorant existence as a person who fails to realize how their words affect any other person -- imagine if a racist Leslie Nielsen was in a totally boring version of Naked Gun in which the cops targeted racial minority criminals simply because of their skin color... would that even be funny?
This movie falls into a growing untitled category of movies that attempts to paint a certain class of people as living meager lives while walking around and staring into space, yet somehow manage to absorb knowledge from the thin air around them and manage to know more than the people that they reach out to for help - such as in this movie when the woman knows more than the doctor that they visited for help, completely negating any reason for the woman to visit the doctor in the first place! The only reason for the scene is to show that white American doctors do not have the best interest in mind for non-white non-American immigrants, AND do not have the intelligence required to be a doctor, AND happen to also be completely racist! If you want to see what I mean, you honestly don't have to view the movie... you can simply watch the trailer, when the doctor considers the dog from White Fang to be an immigrant -- totally believable that a man with 8+ years in medicine school who the main character pays to analyze them in a therapy session is ironically too dumb to know what an immigrant is. I'm sure this scene is funny at some point in history at some place on the planet, but nobody in the theater laughed.
Btw, I was the only person in the theater.
I really think that in 50 years people will look back at this movie and others like it with disgust that Hollywood created this garbage. The main character in this movie has been created from cultural misappropriation, but presented in a manner that attempts to convince the viewer that the story is being told in a genuine manner. But if you look beneath the black and white of the movie, you will discover thin veins of bland British comedy. I look forward to the day that this story about a poor Afghan girl with PTSD will be told in a genuine way that doesn't involve cultural misappropriation.
If you are the type of person that likes to slowly wade through mud from one side of a creek to another to find something interesting, then you should go for it...if you find this film on the bank, just realize that its probably there for a reason.