Rachid Bouchareb 2012 France/UK/USA
Starring: Golshifteh Farahani, Sienna Miller, Roschdy Zem, Chafia Boudraa, Jesse Harper, Michael Ehlers
As a reviewer and cinephile I get depressed sometimes and think that the current film climate has no place for odd concepts or actors and directors climbing out of their insulated comfort zones. Certainly they're lesser seen in 2014 than they were in the 1960's or 70's and have been replaced mostly by witheringly atrocious 'comedies' such as Bad Neighbours or remakes of films either originally in a foreign language, already weighed down by a multitude of sequels or perfectly serviceable in their first incarnation. So in a way it's heartening to see an idea as bizarre and unexpected as Just Like A Woman, a road movie involving belly dancing directed by the capable and interesting French/Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb and starring Sienna Miller and the exiled Iranian dramatic actress Golshifteh Farahani, get green lit. For those who haven't heard of him Bouchareb is primarily known for his mildly controversial war films (the main dispute laying with his ignorance of accepted historical fact and portrayal of apparent fiction as truth in 2010's Hors-la-loi). He did attempt to branch out slightly with 2009's English-language feature London River (concerning the families of victims of terrorism) but never has he approached a subject seemingly so light. To unite him with Miller suggests one, albeit unanticipated, type of film but a connection with Farahani hints at a different genre entirely. Unfortunately the typical problem with such nutty projects is that their unusual combinations really don't work and the resulting film is often messy and dire and, while that's not quite the case here, the outcome is just the same. The main setback isn't as might be expected the mix of acting styles or the performances of the leads, it's almost completely down to the general awfulness of the material and a script that at times appears to have been created with the intent of seeing how many dull clichés can be stuffed ill-fittingly into an hour and twenty minutes. Miller's Marilyn has a musclebound, monosyllabic cheat of a husband (played by an excruciatingly terrible Jesse Bob Harper) while Farahani's Mona has been more or less bought from her Egyptian family and forced into marriage with a loving but weak immigrant husband and suffers bullying from her horrible mother-in-law. The only association between the oppressors appears to be that neither seem to know more than about twenty words. After three (yes, three) life-changing events implausibly happen to the pair in the same day they speed off together in Marilyn's soft-top convertible (that she can afford despite having been in a menial job for the past seven years and having an unemployed husband) headed for a audition that out of all the people at her dance class only Marilyn "has a chance of winning". But there's a hitch, both women have issues that threaten to stop them. Hip-hip-hoo-fucking-ray. Farahani is one of my favourite actresses of the last couple of years and, despite a disappointing public perception, I really like Miller - she seems willing to try a variety of roles and always makes an admirable effort - but they're given absolutely nothing to work with. There's potential in Mona's subplot and it's a surprise to see such an unusually downbeat narrative hidden within an ostensibly unchallenging film (there's more than a tinge of Thelma & Louise) but any promise of a portrait of the problems of women from different cultures is choked by the lack of character development, noteworthy action and honestly entertainment until proceedings limp to their astonishingly lazy non-ending with the consequences that have been foreshadowed throughout only notable by their total absence. Instead the women dance together one last time as a cartoonish shrinking circle takes the image from us. An utter waste of money, remarkable talent and everybody's time that Bouchareb should be thoroughly ashamed of.
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