‘Unidentified’ Review: HAIFAA AL-MANOVER’S CLEVER SAUDI MURDER MYSTERY OFFERS A SCATING Critique of Female Oppression, with A Twist

What’s Great About the Criminal Investigation Genre is that is so so formulaic, the best entries USUALLY USE IT as A Pretext to Talk About something.

Case – or is that Cold Case? – In Point: UnidentifiedThe New Detective Flick from Director Haifaa Al-Mansour, Utilizes the Death of a Young Woman to Explore Howt Howi Arabia’s Crushing Patriarchy Creats Both Victims And Crimina Sleekly if routinely Made, this classic whodunit is Ultimately more interesting for what it reveals about the Filmmaker’s Homeland than the mystery it unfolds.

This Doesn’t Mean That Al-Mansour, Who Broke Out In 2012 With The International Arthhouse Hit Wadjda – The First Feature Film Ever Made in the Kingdom – Doesn’s Have A FEW Good Twists Up Her Sleeve. For Viewers Who Are Skeptical of the Movie’s Polished Sheen and Familiar Trops, It’s Wrth Sticking AROUND FOR A FINAL THAT’S STRAIGHT OUT OF The USUAL Suspects. Not only does it makes US RESTHINK Everything We’ve Seen; It Doubles Down on It Critique of a Country Pushing Women to Extreme Measures.

CONSIDERING HOW OVERT THAT CITYQUE IS AT Times, It May Seem Surpring that Unidentified Received Funding from the Saudi Film Commission, Especialy Given the Recent Controversy Involving American Stand-Up Stars Accepting to Police Their Content Who’s Performing for Big Big Big Big Big Big Big Big Big Big. But that Paradox of a regime that has made an Effort to foster art and culture (The Ban on Cinemaas in Saudi Arabia Lieded in 2018) While Trimaling to Maintain AROTAIN of CENSESS. In the best casses, Such As Al-Mansour’s New Movie, The Messages Manage to Slip Through The Cracks: No Mentation Is Ever Made Onscreen of Social or Religious Oppline, But The Proot.

Or ratioer – in the dead body of a teenage girl, WHICH TURNS UP IN THE DESERT at the Start of the Film, Prompting a Long, Winding Investigation To Both Uncover, Victim’s Identity And, Event. The Twist Is That Detective Is Amateur Sleuth Named Noelle (Mila Alzahrani), A recently Divorced Woman Who Works As a Low-Low-Lowel Cleerk in a Police Precinct Reserosible for Petty for Petty. The Other Twist is that noelle is addicted to a podcast (performed by Adwa Alasiri) that disheses out of True Crime Stories and Helpful Makeup Tips, an Amming Combination of GLOSS.

The Podcast Is One of Many Ways Unidentified Highlights the predicament Facing Saudi Women, Pressure to Be Pretty, Pious and ObDIENT HOUSEWIVES, EVEN IF THEY DESIRE SOMETING MORE FOR THEMSELVES. Through Nightmarish Flashbacks, We Learn How This Was The Case with Noelle, Who Tragical Lost A Child and Whose Husband Decided To Take on a Second Scouse, AS IS ASIT. Noelle Chose to Separate from HIM INSTEAD, AND She CLINGS to the Mysterious Death of a High-School Student As a Means to Both Mourn Her Loss and Help and Help and Siet

The best parts of the Film Show Noelle Discretly Investigating the Murder While Her Male Colleagues Remain Two Steps Beind Her. Shest Running Into Brick Walls – Whtcher at the Girl’s School, Whoch is Embarrassed by the Victim’s Promiscuity (She Died While Meeting Up With ARRIRIRY MANTRIRY HERRIRY HERRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRIRRIA WHEN INTERROGATING HER MOTHER (FATMA ALSHAREF), Who Refuse to Grieve for A Dead Daughter Who Brough Humiliation Upon The Family; or WHEN chasing Down A Street Artist (Abdullah Alqhahtani) Who Tags Koranic Messages AROUND TOWN AND APEARS TO BE The NUMBER ONE SUSPECT.

As Both A Novice Detective an A Woman, Noelle Certainly Has The Cards Stamped Against Her. But She Ingeniously Finds Ways to Bring User to the Truth, WHICH Speaks to a Greater Truth About Female Life in Saudi Arabia. The fact that noelle is able to drive around Town – Saudi Women Were Only Permitted to Hold Driver’s Licenses Starting in 2018 – and Conduct Her Own Inquiry Shows that Times Haves. And Yet there is Much Progress to be Made, with the Film’s surprising denoument botling the rug out from Under US and Commenting on How Despert The Sity Remains.

In the Press Notes, AL-MANSUR EXPLAINS THAT Unidentified is the third part of a “saudi tribogy” that began with Wadjda and Continued with The Perfect Candidatebots of which featured heroines strving under a synem that was slowly and painfulfully Granting women a greater place in Society. (In Between Those Two, AL-MANSUR Made the English-Language Biopic Mary Shelley.) Her Latest Takes that Scenario to A Darker and More twisted Place, Deepening the Feeling That Things Are From Okay in the Kingdom.

I Unfortunate, THEN, THAT The FILMMAKING ISN’T ALWAYS ON PAR WITH the MESSAGING. Shot in a polishd, overlit style that looks closer to television than cinema, and filled with a nonstop hollywood-style Score that hits all the requisite thriller notes, Unidentified DISTINGUISHES ITSELF LESS THROUGH ITS FORM THAN ITS CONTENT. Still, at a time who variety Kinds of Official Censorship Continue in Saudi Arabia-and Now, Quite Possibly, in the United States-Al-Mansour Endures for the voiceless, whather they’re living or dead.