Directed By Women: Priscilla (2023)

A24

By Andrea Thompson

A biopic of Priscilla Presley directed by Sofia Coppola? What is there to say besides what took so long?

Or at least, you would think so. Coming back from a vacation (hence the absence of last week’s column), all I could think was how much I hate it when I disagree with my favorite creatives. I am among the minority who absolutely loathed Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” and while my feelings are far less negative for Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla,” I still find it to be among her weakest films.

Especially when a comparison to another, more superior film is inevitable. In last year’s “Elvis,” Baz Luhrmann used his trademark fascination with pomp and flash to propel the story, but unfortunately Coppola allows hers to bog it down. It makes “Elvis” function far better as propaganda than “Priscilla” does as a biopic.

And make no mistake, the way Luhrmann depicted his subject as a passionate activist for civil rights who suffered for his beliefs while leaving Priscilla’s role to little more than a cameo was absolutely wish fulfillment for the icon Luhrmann clearly reveres. But this column is about “Priscilla,” so this can be left for others to expand on.

To criticize Coppola for making fashion and the lushness of a great setting part of her focus is to miss the point. Coppola has always had a deeply feminine eye and has unapologetically made fashionable visuals of her films a key element of the stories she tells. The swirling 70’s dresses of sunny suburbia, the eye-popping trappings of pre-Revolutionary France, the heaving bodices of a repressed Southern Gothic locked in the midst Civil War - we don’t just picture it, we feel every bit of it due to a director who has made style and substance blend seamlessly.

Due to her pedigree, Coppola has also long had a fascination for the fashionable world she hails from, and it sometimes causes her to sink into superficiality, even if it is of a type uniquely her own. Not to mention it’s quite satisfying to hear Francis referred to as Sofia’s dad in some cinephile chatter.

This flaw is what ultimately prevents her from telling Priscilla Presley’s story more effectively. The timing is right, she has fantastic leads in Cailee Spaeny as the title character, who believably transforms from lovestruck girl to confident woman, “Euphoria” villain Jacob Elordi as an Elvis who is both believably vulnerable and manipulative, and a story that seems right out of every one of the Sofia Coppola trademarks we’ve come to know. But the world of the rich and famous is no match for what Priscilla creates once she leaves it.

It’s hard to fault Coppola too much, since the cloistered world of these particular celebrities utterly changed the zeitgeist as we know it. Priscilla Presley mined empowerment from exploitation in a very female version of the hero’s journey, transforming from a princess stashed away in a tower to empowered queen, and lately, the executive producer on the film.

And the film does get quite a bit right, especially in the way it portrays a patriarchal world which not only allowed a rich, powerful man in the public eye to court a 14-year-old, but to actively enable him. From the tunes of the times, which sang of little girls in love, to the negotiations between the military men in Priscilla’s life about where and when she could spend her time, and especially the hangers-on who were unwilling to give anything resembling pushback to the King, every one of them knew where the money was and how it would benefit them.

This is clearly where Coppola’s interest lies, and from the cherry on top of her ice cream sundae in a pocket of Americana in West Germany, to the various textures of the plush carpeting, soft velvet, and the general look of life in Graceland, Sofia is clearly in her element, infusing the first appearance of Priscilla’s signature bob and look with the rousing momentousness of Darth Vader suiting up for the first time.

A24

But adulthood has to arrive sometime, and the movie loses interest once Priscilla actually starts to get a life. Once she stops dying her hair and lets it grow in its more natural state, dresses in more practical, less forcefully feminine attire like jeans, the story is clearly over, with time flying by via various montages. Some of that is clearly to be expected, since the movie is based on the memoir written by Priscilla herself about her relationship with Elvis.

Yet there’s a reason that Priscilla has become a cultural force in her own right, turning Graceland into a tourist attraction and ensuring her ex-husband’s legacy financially and otherwise, with granddaughter Riley Keough establishing herself as an acclaimed actress and currently the sole owner of Graceland. Part of it is simply that unlike other attempts to tell Priscilla’s story, such as the 1988 TV movie “Elvis and Me,” “Priscilla” doesn’t have the luxury of time. And let’s face it, her business ventures are far less cinematic and mostly outside of Coppola’s oeuvre.

Directed By Women: The Hitch-Hiker (1953)

By Andrea Thompson

Since the last two films in this column have been all about the new kids on the block, this week’s column features a throwback, a movie that’s every bit as lean and mean as its intro promises.

No, Ida Lupino’s slim, 70 minute 1953 thriller “The Hitch-Hiker” isn’t technically horror, but rather a noir. It takes place south of the border, and while we don’t travel the world and see its wonders, the cruelty of men, or more accurately, one man, is on full display, and that’s plenty.

The movie was inspired by the real life story of Billy Cook’s murder spree, which Lupino apparently had to soften to satisfy censors. But her introduction of the sociopathic Emmett Myers (William Talman) is nonetheless weighted with menace, with Myers coming off as demented as any slasher villain.

Like many of the best monsters, “The Hitch-Hiker” shrouds its killer with an air of mystery, only showing the lower portion of Myers’s body as he unrepentantly shoots those who have the bad fortune to offer him a ride before Roy Collins (Edmond O'Brien) and Gilbert Bowen (Frank Lovejoy) unwittingly kick off their own nightmarish odyssey by inviting him into their car. Face enshrouded in shadow in the backseat, Myers quickly reveals himself, producing a gun and issuing orders clearly borne of a long history of brutally using and disposing of people as he sees fit.

Collins and Bowen are everymen who share a long history of friendship, and much of the movie’s suspense, and Myers’s sadism, is borne of the fact that the two refuse to abandon each other. Each pit stop, from a gas station to a store where they stop to grab necessary supplies, we all hold our breath for that false move that could mean the end of every innocent person the trio happens to come across.

Because make no mistake, Myers is so human that his character lends itself to the many ways he seems inhuman. His vigilance, the gleeful ways he psychologically tortures Collins and Bowen, the tattered pieces of his backstory - all of it confirms that this is a tortured man who is beyond redemption. Myers views the care his captives show for each other as soft, nothing more, and his guiding philosophy is that since no one gave him anything, he owes nothing to any human being, least of all mercy.

But the most chilling thing of all is his and the movie’s lack of pretense. Myers makes plain that he plans to kill the duo once they’re no longer useful, and as they make their way through the Mexican countryside, whether or not the radio reports the police tracking their progress, the discovery of a wedding ring, could mean the difference between an extra few hours of life. They are also completely unable to tell when they can make a break for it, since one of Myers’s eyes refuses to close all the way.

It’s very likely Lupino also felt like she had something to prove. In a time when female directors were nearly nonexistent, she had a number of women’s pictures under her directorial belt, including “Outrage,” which in 1950 was one of the first films to deal with the subject of rape, before turning her attention to a thriller. And that was only due to the fact that the film’s original male director fell ill and was unable to finish filming.

Clearly the film didn’t suffer for it. It remains a classic, well worth the investment of its relatively paltry $100,000 budget, still earning praise for how gleefully we root for the noose to tighten around the Myers’s neck. Unsentimental, unsparing, and utterly exhausting once the climax finally puts an end to a very American brand of senseless violence, it remains one of Lupino’s finest works in a long career that nevertheless should’ve seen far more.

Directed By Women: The People's Joker (2022)

By Andrea Thompson

Ah, autumn. For others, it means leaves changing, pumpkin spice lattes, spooky fun, and sweaters. For film critics, it means a whole lot of film festivals that we insist on running ourselves ragged for. Why should that change? For those afflicted with cinephilia, it’s a fantastic way to experience films that wouldn’t otherwise be discoverable, even in our supposedly stuffed-with-options streaming content era. 

Personally, I have immersed myself in the Chicago Underground Film Festival, the Reeling International Film Festival, and am now turning my attention to the Chicago International Film Festival, which features an absolute beauty of a lineup this year. And one particular offering seemed to almost beg for a place in this recently revamped Directed By Women column: “The People’s Joker”. 

Like last week’s focus, “T Blockers,” “The People’s Joker” is a trans film, and there’s a whole lot of horror contained in it without its characters being reduced to their oppression. But where “T Blockers” is a Gen Z anthem of defiance made by a budding artist just on the cusp of what will hopefully be a long and promising career, Vera Drew’s “The People’s Joker” is a millennial tale full of hard-lived wisdom and steeped in meta.

It’s also an incredibly low budget movie that’s equal parts queer coming-of-age story, extremely unauthorized superhero parody, and love letter to queer creatives. And filmed in a style that I can only describe as mixed media dystopian zine fused with pure camp. 

If that sounds baffling, that’s nothing against you or me, it’s merely part of the gleefully deranged, utterly fearless experience that is viewing this movie. IP doesn’t generally lend itself to much creativity in our incredibly corporatized environs, but Drew, who not only directs, but co-writes and stars as the lead, a trans girl who eventually blooms into her true identity as Joker the Harlequin, makes gleeful use of beloved fan favorites of the DC universe, as well as her many inspirations.

Batman’s problematic nature has been discussed and dissected long before this, but in “The People’s Joker” he’s not only a corporate fascist who’s unleashed a vicious army of drones onto Gotham, he’s also a predatory closeted gay man who grooms and exploits the penniless orphans he takes in. When Joker arrives in Gotham to pursue a comedy career after a harrowing childhood in Smallville - the kind only sunny Midwestern repression can dish out - she meets and falls for one of them, Jason Todd (Kane Distler), a young queer boy who has since refashioned himself into a Leto-esque Joker.

This isn’t only a setup for a toxic relationship that the older, wiser Joker the Harlequin uses as a guide for how to recognize abuse, it’s also a way for Drew to throw a whole lot of shade, with much of her ire reserved for Lorne Michaels and his toxic stranglehold on the state of comedy itself. He may be the catalyst for Harlequin’s rebellion and subsequently forming her own anti-comedy troupe that becomes her found family of recognizable DC villains, but Drew isn’t about to allow her own story to become subsumed in any sense.

And what a story, which doesn’t only incorporate fan conspiracy theories, Michelle Pfeiffer’s legendary Catwoman transformation, but shout-outs to “Goodfellas,” with Harlequin proclaiming she “always wanted to be a Joker,” and bringing in the Necronomicon itself for a cameo.

It’s a lot for a tight, 92 minute runtime that’s also a sincere laugh riot in the way stories from those who have not only survived but thrived tend to be. Drew’s most important inspirations get their due right away however. The film is dedicated to “Mom and Joel Schumacher.”

Directed By Women: T Blockers (2023)

By Andrea Thompson

Yes, the prodigal column has returned, just in time for spooky season, and my favorite holiday no less. Choosing a film to focus on was something of a dilemma, at least until I came across Alice Maio Mackay’s “T Blockers” while I was writing up a festival preview for the Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival Reeling. Then it became something of an easy choice.

Mackay was all of 17 when she made “T Blockers,” already has a respectable chunk of IMDB credits as well as a host of other accomplishments to her name, all of which shout upcoming filmmaker. Mackay is also trans, and the slim 74 minute runtime contains a multitude of complications her surrogate heroine Sophie (Lauren Last), also a trans filmmaker, must wrestle with once she discovers an ancient parasitic worm is preying on the bigots in her small Australian town.

Some of “T Blockers” is about exactly what you’d expect, and a fair amount of it is the rage of it all. There’s the viciousness of the anti-LGBTQ+ politicians, the minefield of attempting to find love in the midst of what seems like a neverending oppression in their daily lives, the crappy jobs the characters have to sustain themselves with as they struggle with every step in fulfilling their artistic ambitions, and the rising hordes of fascists who are rallying against any attempt they make at proclaiming their humanity.

No, the kids are not alright, but they are an extremely tight-knit group in the way people under siege tend to be. But bring on the camp, because Sophie and her bff and roommate Spencer (Lewi Dawson) refuse to be all gloom and doom. The gross-out humor isn’t only reserved for the worms which find plenty of willing hosts, but some of the less than healthy coping methods Spencer and Sophie utilize, which include drugs and vomit. Learn your limits kids, but in the meantime it fits well with the movie’s punk sensibilities, with the more obvious influence John Waters getting himself a name drop later.

These kids also have a kind of clear-eyed, lived wisdom it often takes their more privileged brethren years to acquire. They wait for no one’s approval and make no apologies for immediately fighting back once the possessed gather and go on the prowl, but they have no illusions that this will make their problems vanish, or even their lives necessarily easier. As Sophie tearfully acknowledges after facing a devastating personal loss, the bigots they’re really fighting can win even when they lose, and the battle will have to be fought again and again.

“T Blockers” isn’t merely a salute to Mackay’s B-movie sensibilities and their accompanying idols, it’s also a heartfelt tribute to queer filmmakers of the past, some of whom ultimately lost the battle with their own demons, but managed to create something for future generations to stand on. The movie’s framing device is a film made by a fellow trans filmmaker in the ‘90s who later committed suicide, but which nevertheless acts as both warning and guide so Sophie and her friends can put out the fire this time. In some cases by burning it all down, but I digress.

It’s so damn fun that the movie’s real flaw is all that more irritating (and somewhat spoilery), namely that the whiteness of it all somewhat bogs things down. The first victim of the parasites is Thai Hoa Steven Nguyen, and the other good guy casualty is another actor of color, Toshiro Glenn. In any other movie this would absolutely reek of hypocrisy, yet Mackay shows such promise, namely by making the most of the screen time both of them get. And Glenn’s is infused with a special tenderness due to his budding romance with Sophie, which finally gives her a taste of romantic love, untainted by fetishization.

So “T Blockers” is a success at getting its audience to consider the very questions it brings up. Namely, whether we really know an oppressive regime when we see one, and what exactly makes a monster.

52 Films By Women: At the Ready (2021)

At the Ready

By Andrea Thompson

It’s been an interesting set of weeks collaborating with Milwaukee Film for Hispanic Heritage Month...no less because of the two films I chose to write about in honor of it.

Case in point: in my previous 52 Films By Women column I discussed “Luchadoras,” a documentary that followed female Mexican wrestlers who were fighting for a better life in and out of the ring in Ciudad Juárez. But this week is all about (well, mostly) Maisie Crow’s “At the Ready,” which sees many of its subjects grappling with similar forces in El Paso, Texas. 

When I wrote about “Luchadoras,” I mentioned that Juárez and El Paso were separated by a mere fence, but the latter enjoyed safety and prosperity, while the former has come to be known as Murder City. And judging by El Paso’s depiction in “At the Ready,” it truly does seem like a world away. 

If anyone in “At the Ready” is in the line of fire, it’s because they’re choosing to be, since the film’s subjects are high school seniors who are training to be police officers and Border Patrol agents. Most of them are Hispanic, and the profession they’re already actively planning to join has them training for active shooter situations, drug busts, and raids in their high school itself. So prepare to be disturbed, since the doc kicks off with kids suiting up in paramilitary garb and going through drills.

As intense as it often is to see teenagers holding fake guns and intending to use the real thing, it’s often just as disturbing to see other people’s reactions as they go through their exercises. Other kids smile and laugh, but to others it’s clearly been normalized, which includes many of the teachers, one of whom is so unfazed they merely mumble a greeting and continue on with their day.

At first glance, their lives seem to have little in common with those in “Luchadoras.” They can leave the house and go where they wish with relative freedom, since being watched and followed by cartels - or possibly getting shot in general - certainly doesn’t figure into their daily lives. And while none of them could be remotely called wealthy, their families have been able to build a measure of success and a general safety net that ensures a measure of stability.

It may be the bare minimum, but I can’t help but make the comparison. The longer “At the Ready” goes on however, the clearer it becomes that many are indeed being harmed by the increasingly vicious immigration system. It’s simply less apparent, and reflective of the insidious ways even the seemingly privileged are often used to maintain the status quo and invest in a way of life that harms us all.

Crow may keep herself out of the story she’s telling, but it’s clear enough where she stands - where any sane person would. But she mostly takes the classic route of allowing her subjects speak for themselves as she waits for them to open up and be vulnerable while attempting to portray them as truthfully as she can. The main focus are three young trainees: Cesar, Cristina, and Kassy, who quickly emerges as the most compelling, and has since come out as trans and changed their name to Mason.

Before that though, he will break your heart as he comes across as both spectacularly competent in his work and clearly unsuited to it. As Mason slowly opens up, it’s also quite clear that he’s a part of this group out of a desperate need for a sense of family, even if he must hide who he is. He’s not out to many of these so-called friends, and his father is absent much of the time. Work is a convenient explanation, but when Mason’s father does have free time, he chooses to spend it with his girlfriend and her children, leaving Mason to his own devices and to essentially raise himself.

The motives of Cristina and Cesar are less emotional, but no less complicated. They both clearly want to make good on the sacrifices their parents made for a better life, even if Cesar’s father is unable to return to the U.S. after he was arrested for drugs, and Cristina’s own father is an immigrant. 

Crow more or less spells out why they or anyone else would get involved in this type of work in the first place though. As jobs get scarcer, one that is willing to hire young and pay $50,000 the first year, $100,000 after five, no college degree required, is bound to attract a fair amount of people, ethics be damned, especially in families where money is a constant consideration.

Politics also can’t help but play a role, as Trump’s outright racism and the increasingly cruel border policies quickly make Cristina, Cesar and Mason doubt whether they even want to remain involved in law enforcement. Even one of the instructors eventually acknowledges how hypocritical he feels in training these children to join his former profession, revealing that he suffers from PTSD and his belief that his job played a large role in his divorce.

But it’s funny the way things do and don’t work out. After the central trio graduates, it is Mason, who once felt bereft of so much, who seems the most well-adjusted and accepting of who he is. An amount of uncertainty is generally a given during young adulthood, but Cesar and Cristina seem a bit more lost than most. They spent much of their last year of high school preparing for a career they now feel incapable of doing well or at all, and they’re clearly still floundering in the wake of their disillusionment. Where they’ll end up is anyone's guess, and it’s something of a relief that Crow withheld judgements about them as she exquisitely allowed their lives to reveal just what might be in store for us all if our immigration policies continue unchanged.

52 Films By Women: Luchadoras (2021)

By Andrea Thompson

There’s no doubt that co-directors Paola Calvo and Patrick Jasim wanted to make a powerful statement with their documentary “Luchadoras,” currently streaming as a part of Milwaukee Film’s Hispanic Heritage Month, which follows three female wrestlers struggling to make a better life in Ciudad Juárez, which has seen so many of its residents disappear it’s come to be known as Murder City.

The roots of such a brutally infamous moniker can be blamed on a familiar culprit - the vicious force we quaintly refer to as global capitalism. It makes the most twisted kind of sense, then, that many of the disappeared are women who worked at assembly factories, which are themselves the result of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). All three of the documentary’s subjects, who mostly go by their wrestling alter egos of Lady Candy, Baby Star, and Mini Sirenita, see wrestling both as a source of income and empowerment, a way to fight for a better life in and out of the ring.

They all have many things in common, most of which involve how they cope with the gender limitations in their work and daily lives. The stories, the jokes, the memories they all share, with each other and those around them, are no less horrifying for being normalized. They speak of their memories of women screaming for help who they were too afraid to assist, of others who were abducted and raped by bus drivers, the discovery of mutilated bodies in the desert, and the police corruption and incompetence that enables it all. 

Their personal lives are about as healthy as you can expect, as many recount stories of the toxic men in their lives, from those in the ring to their families and their partners, many of whom forbade them from working, and who were generally a source of emotional and physical violence. 

The truly remarkable thing is how determined each of them are to have the last word. They may be under siege, but the women in “Luchadoras” have reached the stage where they’ve become very aware that they’re under siege together. Such solidarity, born of their brutal circumstances, has led them to become activists fighting for change in their communities and personal lives, from teaching self defense classes in the ring to using it as a platform to organize and protest against femicide. 

No, there are no mere victims here, and no one is helpless by any means. Lady Candy, Baby Star, and Mini Sirenita are pushing back as best as they can, living their lives, and trying to make them better. All of them pin their hopes on their wrestling careers despite the very real dangers, and attempt to provide more stability, for themselves and their families.

Given all that, it’s sometimes frustrating how little context Calvo and Jasim provide, even if their reasoning is obvious. They have a great deal of trust in their audience, and centering their subjects above all, even at the expense of that audience at times, is how they avoid reducing this remarkable trio to victims or invulnerable superwomen. 

Candy, the youngest, may have the most painful story of all, one whose twists and turns beg for a little outside guidance. She is the one who works in a funeral home and is grappling most directly with the consequences of not just economics but how the system is stacked against potential immigrants. Candy left her husband due to domestic violence, but he’s still able to keep her children from her in the safety and prosperity of El Paso, Texas, despite the fact that the two cities are separated by a mere fence. To see them, Candy must attempt to get a visa, in spite of the bureaucratic hurdles, and the fact that fewer of them are being granted.

If only Calvo and Jasim were willing to assert themselves into the film, or just more information outside of what people are willing to say aloud, “Luchadoras” would practically be a textbook example of how the unfettered, unchecked, so-called free market wreaks havoc, especially among populations of color. But then, the filmmakers clearly aren’t interested in arguing, merely showing how those who should be helpless can and do resist, even under constant pressure.

52 Films By Women: Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962)

Screenshot

By Andrea Thompson

It’s strange to imagine a world unfamiliar with Agnès Varda, but it was still in the process of getting to know her when she made the 1962 masterpiece “Cléo from 5 to 7.” It was only her second feature, and it took a subject other films would stretch across days, weeks, months, or more, and compressed it into real time.

Over the course of a mere 90 minutes, a young, beautiful, vain singer named Cléo (Corinne Marchand) is not just awaiting the results of a biopsy that will inform her whether she has cancer, she comes to terms with her own mortality. It would feel like paranoia or the hypochondria everyone assumes it is if the film didn’t heavily imply that Cléo not only has cancer, but that she will eventually die from it.

Thank goodness for Varda, because a lesser filmmaker, even a female one, would merely be punishing Cléo for her flaws. But Varda knows there’s more to it than merely portraying Cléo’s self-absorption and humbling her accordingly. As one of a very few female filmmakers during the male-dominated French New Wave, her signature touch, full of compassion, realism, and symbolism doesn’t just burst from the screen, it seems to swirl around us, gently sweeping all into her vision.

Yes, Cléo is focused on her appearance and her beauty, and she is well aware that it is her source of her power. It’s no accident that mirrors are a heavy presence in this film, appearing twice in the first ten minutes alone. But the kind of power Cléo possesses flows from others. It is the outside world who bestows Cléo with power, attention, and her career, and Varda’s camera, rather than lingering on Cléo and her, ahem, assets as she walks down the street, pulls back as both men and women stare and lavish her with attention. 

But not comfort. Every friend Cléo interacts with fails to give her the emotional support she needs, and almost all of them, from friends, confidantes, and colleagues, refuse to take her illness, or even her, seriously. It’s an old, practically classic revelation for women who supposedly enjoy all manner of power and privilege: the discovery of just how fragile their position really is. One of the first, and only, clearly spoken revelations Cléo has about halfway into the film is when she says, “Everyone spoils me. No one loves me.” It’s also when she strips herself of her wig, dons a black dress, and leaves her luxurious apartment to wander alone in search of consolation.

It proves to be an evasive thing. This poor woman must grapple with death all day, from shattered mirrors which she interprets as bad omens to various films and even taxi drivers casually referencing the ultimate end. Even the tarot reader at the beginning, the only portion of the film in color, sets the tone, casually predicting nearly every event to come, and privately stating that she believes Cléo is doomed. 

Varda refuses to give a final verdict, but just as another great film concluded “the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world,” Cléo’s comfort arises from being able to see beyond herself. Or perhaps she just finally meets the right person-a young, talkative soldier named Antoine (Antoine Bourseiller). Unlike the other people Cléo encounters, who are still fully immersed in life, Antoine also has to grapple with the possibility of impending death as a soldier who will soon return to the battlefield of the Algerian War.

It is then when Cléo is finally able to lose her fear of her own possible end, and finally be at peace with herself in the Paris of the 60s Varda fully embraces in all its splendor. In this beautiful, fully alive world, perhaps Varda just found it unthinkable for despair or even death itself to emerge as the dominant force.

52 Films By Women: Jinn (2018)

By Andrea Thompson

Nijla Mumin’s 2018 film “Jinn” is a rarity. It doesn’t just center women of color, nearly all of them are also Muslim women who wear hijabs. It’s a tough subject to even make a film about in an industry that is supposedly committed to diversity, but it’s especially difficult to do it justice as Mumin does. “Jinn” doesn’t merely preach the beauty of Islam and being yourself in a world that is likely to attack you for it, it grapples with the ramifications of faith, freedom, and identity.

In can be difficult for adults to fight their way through such complex intersections, so the carefree, teenage Summer (Zoe Renee) suddenly has far more on her plate than college applications when her mother Jade (Simone Missick) suddenly converts to Islam and becomes someone Summer doesn’t recognize.

When Jade starts to bring Summer to the mosque, things get even more complicated. Jade is all aglow in the zeal of a convert, a godly light that Summer envies but feels too far away from to share in, even when she eventually decides to go along. So she converts, starts wearing the hijab, and refuses to let anyone talk down to her about her decision. But Summer also chafes at the restrictions her mother and her newfound community place on her. It’s the classic dilemma - all the comforts and trappings of faith can suddenly become chains when faced with the simple reality of being a human in a very messy world.

Islam does provide Summer with a new way of defining her struggles though, and she becomes more and more fascinated by stories of spirits called jinn. Neither of god nor hell, they can motivate humans to do good or evil. The turbulence inherent in the concept fits Summer’s own worldview, as she becomes increasingly aware of the limitations on her, especially as her attraction to her classmate Tahir (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), who also attends the same mosque, grows. 

One of the great ironies is that there’s nothing like repression to make a love story progress, so when Summer and Tahir lock eyes during the Imam’s (Hisham Tawfiq) preaching, it’s in a way that speaks of far more worldly attractions, likely made more delicious by the knowledge that those around them would condemn them for it.

But even as “Jinn” refuses to deny the darker side of Islam and how women are often shamed far more for not living up to expectations, Mumin also gives the mosque a warmth and a glow seldom seen in film. It embraces the comfort such an environment can provide, and none of the women who bask in it are victims. They are fully in control of their own decisions, even Jade, whose fanaticism begins to drive a wedge between her and her daughter.

The conclusion is about as messy as people generally are, with freedom being the ultimate goal for mother and daughter. That freedom may look different to both of them, but it is ultimately the ultimate prize with all that beautiful messiness inherent to them and others.

Jinn is streaming on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Apple TV, and Vudu.