When a man dies, intones the leader of a women’s wake, the light goes from the home. Nawal (Mouna Hawa), who has woken to find her increasingly tired husband Adnan has died in the night, bows her head with her accustomed piety as her very existence is erased by this prolonged eulogy to the man who is gone.
She still is here caring for their daughter, working long hours in a wealthy house as a nurse to an elderly woman with advanced dementia and maintaining a welcoming home in the flat they bought and were paying off together, using her inheritance as a deposit. That life isn’t mentioned, however. Nawal’s primary duty is to “safeguard the reputation” of her husband by staying inside for four months and 10 days. And if that is impossible, not to be outside the house after dark. “The devils roam the world after sunset,” warns the prayer leader.
Inshallah a Boy director Amjad Al Rasheed eviscerates the misogyny he sees around him, inscribed in tradition and in the law, so relentlessly that it is surprising – and heartening – to see it selected as the Jordanian entry for the Oscars. The injustices of his country’s legal system, soberly enumerated in the film, are astonishing; bereavement is only the first of Nawal’s difficulties.
Only a couple of days after Adnan’s death, Nawal’s brother-in-law Rifqi (Haitam Omari) calls in a debt she didn’t know existed. She then discovers that Adnan lost his job four months before he died, leaving other bills unpaid. Worst of all, the law stipulates that Rifqi can also claim half their house as his rightful share of Adnan’s inheritance. Right now is good for him, he says. He’s rather short of cash.
Rifqi is a superbly conceived villain, wicked in his very ordinariness. A grasping, overbearing bully who always stands slightly too close to slender Nawal, he poses as the family protector; under this guise, he sues for custody of Nora, her daughter (Seleena Rababah), saying righteously that he would never let his niece be homeless. Ahmad (Mohammad Al Jizawi), Nawal’s vacillating brother, nags her to comply and be nice about it. What is wrong, he asks, with a child spending time with her uncle and aunt? She will live with him until he finds her a new husband.
If Nora were a boy, things would be different; she would be her father’s heir. If Nawal were pregnant, she would have at least nine months’ reprieve until the sex of her baby was revealed. When Lauren (Yumna Marwan), the glamorously coiffed and manicured daughter of her employer, discovers she is pregnant to her hated husband, Nawal conceives of a desperate plan that will certainly incur God’s wrath but could rescue both of them.
Lauren’s story packs its own punch. Coming from money is no protection from violence, nor does the fact that she is Catholic rather than Muslim make any difference to her status. She is ostensibly a trophy wife; as a woman, she knows she counts for nothing as soon as she steps out of line. Her husband now humiliates her with infidelities; she wants a divorce, while he expects her to shut up and have children. That’s right, says her mother Souad (Salwa Nakarra, crackingly viperish), say nothing, as generations of women have done before you.
There is no denying the harshness of this slice of life, but Rasheed does everything possible to cushion it with domestic detail. His pace is steady, the performances – particularly that of Palestinian actress Mouna Hawa, outstanding as a woman torn between her sense of duty and seething fury – delivered with quiet force. The vastness of his subject is conveyed by an opening shot that pans across the Amman skyline, telling us that we are about to witness a story that envelops all of life.
That shot lands, however, on a bra that has dropped from a balcony clothesline to a roof strut, a shameful sign of disorderly housewifery within. We see immediately how he will focus on small things, unveiling lives that are all but invisible to outsiders. It is a tone, restrained and stripped of artifice.
As the story of Nawal’s struggle piles twist on turn, however, it gathers the momentum of a thriller. Her employer sacks her — embattled Nawal is no longer respectable enough to nurse an old woman. More court orders arrive, summoning her to appear before a single magistrate who will consider Rifqi’s lawsuits and decide her fate. Something must give, there must be some resolution.
Nawal feels the same urgency. When she was a child, she tells Nora, she feared nothing. Now she sees how growing up to be a woman has paradoxically shrunk her, leaving her afraid even of the mouse that has invaded her kitchen. Nora needs a better life than this one; even for her sake, Nawal has to find her courage again. Watching her strive to recover it is the greatest thrill of all.
Title: Inshallah a Boy
Distributor: Greenwich Entertainment
Release date: January 12, 2024
Director: Amjad Al Rasheed
Screenwriter: Delphine Agut, Rula Nasser, Amjad Al Rasheed
Cast: Mouna Hawa, Hitham Omari, Seleena Rababah, Yumna Marwan, Salwa Nakarra, Mohammad Al Jizawi
Running time: 1 hr, 53 min