Movie Review - Wadjda

Wadjda ***½ (PG) Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) is a 10-year-old Saudi girl whose Western tastes and curious intellect make her ill-suited to life in her very conservative village. She wears sneakers under her burkha. She weaves friendship bracelets and makes tapes of her favorite rock songs; even worse, her biggest goal is to be the first girl to have a bicycle - something only the boys are allowed. She and her mother share an apartment. Her dad lives separately, and is considering a second wife, which her mom hopes desperately to avert. There’s love, but no chance of her bearing a son, and that could be a deal-breaker.

The mother has a job at a hospital, but must endure a three-hour round-trip commute solely because hubby won’t let her work at the closer one, where men and women can interact more openly. The oppression of women isn’t shown as violent, but spirit-killing, and hard to justify to outsiders. Besides the inequity imposed on an entire gender, we can also see how the country loses by wasting the talents and potential contributions of bright women with far more to offer than they’re allowed to even consider.

The film will seem either depressing or aggravating to most Western viewers. Ms. Mohammed’s performance is superb, conveying admirable intelligence and emotional range within the strictures of her role in the film, and in her community. It’s topical and dramatically compelling for its glimpse into an amazingly disparate reality, and the acting of a talented young woman. (10/18/13)