Wadjda Review


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Release Date: September 13, 2013 
Director: Haifaa Al-Monsour
Producers: Gehard Meixnar, Amr Alkahtani, Roman Paul
Main Cast: Reem Abdullah, Waad Mohammed, Abdullrahman Al Gohani

Wadjda is the first film in Saudi Arabia to be directed by a women, and it did not disappoint. The film follows a ten year old girl who lives in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Living in a very conservative and  religious city, she goes to a school that is just the same. Wadjda doesn't fit in with the other girls at her school; she is told not to wear her converse, to wear a proper hijab and be like everyone else. Wadjda gets fixated on owning a bike like all of her guys friends, and wants to race them and own her own bicycle. Her mother was against this, and so would not help with the funds. To Wadjda's favor, her mother was very dusrcated with her romantic life, trying to convince her husband not to marry a second wife. Because of this heavy distraction, being the rebellious girl she is, Wadjda decided to go behind everyone's back, including her school and make her own money to afford the bicycle, which was 800 riyals. But, it did not take long until she got caught at school selling bracelets and running schemes to make money. Wadjda thought she was out of luck until they announced a Quran competition, with a grand prize of 1000 riyals. She usually wouldn't, but getting the bicycle meant so much to her that she committed to the competition and worked her hardest to memorize Surah's in the Quran. 
Going into this movie I didn't have high hopes because I thought the concept of a trouble maker child, overcoming the odds to achieve something great has been so overdone. But half way through, I was so invested in this movie and thought although a common concept for a movie, it was very well done. The acting was amazing, and the director did Ana amazing job at shining a spotlight on gender roles and defying the odds. I would highly recommend this movie to everyone, I thought it was fantastic. 
Out of 21 thousand IMDb voters, Wadjda was voted a surprising 7.5/10, with 11.6% giving the film the highest rating of a 10, and 2.3% giving the film the lowest rating of 1. The most common rating this film was given was an eight, with 32.7% people voting it. I was surprised with this voting, but I still stand in my opinion of this being a five star film. 
 

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