Brides (15) |Close-Up Film Review

This is a fictional story of two 15 year old girls who run away from home in Wales to go to Syria and become ISIS brides.  

The title is a bit misleading – we get one, somewhat menacing shot of Syria (shot in Italy) right at the end of the film when the girls reach the end of their journey – no weddings.  What the director Nadja Fall and the writer

Suhayla El-Bushra are interested in here is not their ultimate fate but who they are, why they undertake the journey and the journey itself.

The two girls are newcomer Ebada Hassan as Doe, who is from a Somalian refugee family and Safiyya Ingar as Muna, whose family are from Pakistan.   Hassan, who’s never acted before is mesmerizingly beautiful.  Her character is strong, observant and quiet in contrast to her friend. Ingar as Muna is the bossy one of the duo, quick tempered and impulsive.  The two became friends, we later discover, when Muna defended Doe at school from some racist bullies. 

This isn’t a film about politics; it’s about being a teenager escaping from a life in which you feel a stranger.  Doe, who arrived in Wales as a three year old refugee with her mother, has clung defiantly to her Muslim roots, while her mother has adopted a secular  Western lifestyle.  Doe has a boyfriend of sorts Samir ((Ali Khan) who has gone to join ISIS, who has presumably groomed her and with whom she deludedly hopes for a happy ending.  Muna’s motivation is escape –  from a violent home background and an outside world rife with racism, both of which seem to have no place for her.   Idealism doesn’t come into it. 

We learn about the girls’ backgrounds in flashbacks as they undertake their journey.   At first on the train to London, giggling as though it’s all a bit of a lark.  They manage they intricacies of getting through airport security and such, find themselves in Istanbul, where their promised contact fails to show but they are befriended by the cashier at the bus station, who takes them home to her mum for some good Turkish food. 

This is a very impressive feature film debut from both writer and director, as well as one of the actresses, which really captures the vulnerability and impulsiveness of the girls.  .  It’s not political, not judgmental, just human.  And without being overly feminist, it’s a film about young women made by women, with men in supporting roles.   The cinematographer too is female – Clarissa Cappellani.   Hardly a man in sight