Writer and Director: Ramzi Bashour
Daniel Zolghadri’s character in this endearing film says that the best things about America are diners and road trips. There are plenty of diners in this road movie, which takes a mother and son from Indiana to California. As the genre requires, there are inner journeys as well as the one that crosses the United States.
After hitting a fellow student with a hockey stick, Zolghadri’s 19-year-old Daniel is expelled from college, and it’s unlikely that he’ll get another chance in Indiana. And so, when his father calls from Santa Cruz suggesting that he come and finish his studies in California, Daniel and his mother hesitantly agree. Daniel can’t fly because of a collapsed lung he picked up in the fight, and there are mudslides in Santa Cruz, so his mother, Layal, must drive him there.
She doesn’t really want to embark on the journey that will end with her being separated from her son. She has a tricky relationship with her ex-husband and left him because he took drugs. Still, she wants Daniel to finish his education, so she accepts her ex’s proposal. A lecturer in Arabic at university, Layal, originally from Lebanon, is highly strung, and her decision to quit smoking cigarettes hasn’t helped her mental health. When she’s not teaching bored students who’d rather look at their phones than learn, she performs meditation exercises in her car. She probably needs a break, but doesn’t realise it.
During the journey, she talks to her family back in Beirut on the phone. Her mother has fallen over and is immobile in bed. Layal’s sister is taking care of her, but the situation is not improving. Meanwhile, in the car, Layal and Daniel bicker about everything. However, when they go to stay with one of her ex’s old hippie friends in Colorado, their relationship improves.
This midway pit stop proves to be the best moment in Ramzi Bashour’s unhurried and unflashy film. Dale Dickey, best known for her role in 2010’s Winter Bone, is full of love and understanding as the ageing hippie who relaxes naked in hot springs smoking dope. Daniel joins her in the naturally heated water, but Layal sits away from them, embarrassed. But one morning, Layal benefits from a series of hugs from Dickey’s character that are as invigorating and relaxing as the hot water. In this crucial scene, it would be so easy for Bashour to pile on the emotion, but his restraint is more powerful. As Layal, actor Lubna Azabal only really leans into the last hug, teary-eyed but not overcome.
It’s a shame that we don’t spend more time with Dickey, her presence revitalising the viewer just as much as it does Layal and Daniel, who agree to set off on the last stage of their journey. There are more arguments to come between mother and son. They quarrel with a hitchhiker and endure the gaudy horrors of Las Vegas. The father (a sensitive performance by Gabe Fazio) and Santa Cruz are on the horizon.
Zolghadri and Azabal are the perfect travelling companions for the London Film Festival audience, both delivering authentic portrayals of people mapping their futures as they traverse the vast interior of America. But despite the distance they travel, Hot Water is a compact and moving family drama about independence and forgiveness.
Hot Water is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2026 from 7-18 October.
