This review was initially published after the 2019 Venice Film Festival premiere of “The Perfect Candidate.”
As someone with a side gig on the programming team of an LGBT film festival, I’ve noticed that, while the coming-out drama is often tired and clichéd coming from American filmmakers, it can be thrilling when one is produced a part of the world where an honest conversation about queer lives is in its early stages.
It’s not a put-down, then, when I say that Saudi Arabia’s “The Perfect Candidate” reminds me of a cycle of Jane Fonda films from the 1970s and 80s — notably “Coming Home,” “The China Syndrome” and “9 to 5” — where she plays women who fight back against their understanding of the world and discover their own voices in the process. And Jane never had to do it while wearing a niqab.
With exquisite subtlety, director Haifaa Al...
As someone with a side gig on the programming team of an LGBT film festival, I’ve noticed that, while the coming-out drama is often tired and clichéd coming from American filmmakers, it can be thrilling when one is produced a part of the world where an honest conversation about queer lives is in its early stages.
It’s not a put-down, then, when I say that Saudi Arabia’s “The Perfect Candidate” reminds me of a cycle of Jane Fonda films from the 1970s and 80s — notably “Coming Home,” “The China Syndrome” and “9 to 5” — where she plays women who fight back against their understanding of the world and discover their own voices in the process. And Jane never had to do it while wearing a niqab.
With exquisite subtlety, director Haifaa Al...
- 5/15/2021
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
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