Inshallah A Boy – Muslim Film Festival

Director: Amjad Al Rasheed

Writers: Delphine Agut, Rula Nasser and Amjad Al Rasheed

The light-heartedness of the title of Amjad Al Rasheed’s film suggests that this Jordanian film will be a comedy: far from it. Instead, there’s something of the bleakness of Ken Loach in the story of a woman fighting to stay in her apartment after her husband dies suddenly. Jordan’s patriarchal inheritance laws mean that without a son, the apartment becomes the property of her husband’s family. Nawal only has a daughter, and her brother-in-law is determined to evict her. Her struggle to keep her house, which she also paid for, is a fiery indictment of the regulations that keep women as second-class citizens.

So despairing at times, Inshallah A Boy is not an easy watch. Mouna Hawa, also to be seen in the forthcoming A House in Jerusalem, is superb as Nawal who is forced to pretend that she is pregnant to delay her brother-in-law’s heartless plans. The Palestinian actor, in every scene, is utterly convincing and, as Nawal’s life spirals out of control, her portrayal of a woman who will stop at nothing to hold on to her home, and then, also her daughter, is heart-breaking.

All the men in her life, men whom she is meant to obey, are appalling, especially her brother-in-law Rifqi (Haitham Alomari) who treats her always with contempt. Indeed, it’s hard to believe that anyone could be so uncaring, but Alomari manages to be sinister enough without resorting to out-and-out villainy. He’s used to getting his way, astonished that anyone, specifically a woman, would challenge him.

Nawal’s brother Ahmad (Mohammed Al Jizawi) is a waste of space, telling his sister to do what she is told. All the officials she meets with to plead her case are men. Young men – boys, still – verbally abuse her when she walks on the wrong side of Amman. Even the male backstreet abortionist she visits with her employer’s daughter commands her to shut the door behind her without a please or thank you. Nawal’s predicament is symbolised by the Christian woman she takes care of. Suffering from the late stages of Alzheimer’s, the elderly woman is rendered mute and immobile.

The only man that has any kindness about him, is Nawal’s colleague, Hassan (an inscrutable Eslam Al-Awadi), a physio for the old woman. However, is his attention genuine, hitting on Nawal seemingly only days after her husband’s death? Nawal soon realises that she will have to fight the system alone and without any help from the male-dominated world that imprisons her.

Her fight against tradition and bureaucracy has something of I, Daniel Blake about it, although Al Rasheed’s lead is a familiar professional actor, perhaps taking away a little of the authenticity of neorealist films. But Hawa is excellent as Nawal, alternatively dejected and determined in her quest for justice.

Inshallah A Boy, the first film from Jordan to premiere at Cannes, is a stunning, brave debut from Al Rasheed who is unafraid to challenge the inequalities that exist in his home country. It is a strident call for change.

Inshallah A Boy is screening at the Muslim International Film Festival from 31 May – 1 June.