Hi everyone!
Welcome back for our final week of reviews before we break for the holidays. It’s been a long year here at One Movie Punch, and we’ll be using the break to take the podcast in for some much-needed maintenance and return with a fresh slate of content.
In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this week of content, beginning today with Streaming Sundays. Today’s feature will be from AppleTV+, who have had some major issues regarding their next feature, THE BANKER, specifically sexual abuse allegations leveled against Bernard Garrett Jr., son of the film’s protagonist and co-producer on the film. I think AppleTV+ is doing the right thing in pulling the film, even if I think it clearly did the wrong thing in purchasing the property without due diligence. Fortunately, we won’t be talking about that film and the sticky wicket it has to navigate to see the light of day. Instead, we’ll have a lovely coming of age drama scoring well with the critics and the fans.
Also, as part of a settlement with the Pigeon Protectors of the World, I am legally obligated to inform the audience of this podcast that the full interview with Matthieu Landour Engel is now publicly available on our Patreon page. In addition to discussing the intricacies of the ongoing ZÉRO M2 pigeon controversy, we’ll also be talking about the film, Mat’s other solo work, and his work with spouse Bali Engel, as part of Bat Collective. You can hear the full interview today at Patreon by going to patreon.com/onemoviepunch. All contributions go to help paying our expenses and to help us grow with our audience.
Before the review today, we’ll have a promo from our friends at Dice Tower Theatre. Every episode, the whole crew re-enact a tabletop role-playing adventure as an audio drama, in a highly binge-able narrative format. You can find them on Twitter @dicetowrtheatre (just drop the ‘e’ in tower, and spell theatre with an ‘r-e’) and on Facebook/Instagram @dicetowertheatre (that’s theatre with an ‘r-e’). Don’t miss their guest review here at One Movie Punch for THE MUMMY (Episode #617), where they learned the harsh penalties of breaking character during Reign of Terror 2019.
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Here we go!
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Today’s movie is HALA, the AppleTV+ coming-of-age drama written and directed by Minhal Baig. The film follows Hala Masood (Geraldine Viswanathan), a young Muslim woman of first-generation immigrant parents, struggling to understand herself in her last year of high school. While secretly meeting with non-Muslim classmate Jesse Ross (Jack Kilmer), she catches her father Zahid (Azad Khan) in a lie, which makes things at home begin to fall apart.
No spoilers.
AppleTV+’s second film offering is much riskier than their first offering, THE ELEPHANT QUEEN (Episode #637), opening with a very risqué scene, featuring Hala’s face peeking over the tub, and definitely setting expectations for the audience. It’s the first of many strong choices from writer/director Baig, as we get a relatively unvarnished look at the female Muslim experience in the United States. It’s at once familiar to any middle-class young woman, especially one who grew up in a conservative family or setting, struggling between tradition and progress, expectations and desires. And how those elements define our identities.
What makes Hala different, however, is her Muslim faith and culture, not just as it actually is, but as others may perceive it to be. The opening sequence continues by giving us a day in the life of Hala, quickly introducing us to all those little differences, from dressing conservatively to the different social interactions with women and men, to a very moving written work featured in the trailer about her experience. If you don’t understand the modern, moderate Muslim experience, you will by the time our introductions are finished, a strong start for the remaining story.
I can’t emphasize enough how great it is to see Geraldine Viswanathan get a role that exercises her drama chops. She was easily one of the best roles in two ensemble films last year, THE PACKAGE (Episode #226) about a young man cutting off his manhood and attempting to have it reattached, and BLOCKERS (Episode #360), about young women attempting to get laid by the end of their senior prom. Both films seem to utilize Viswanathan in an almost token manner, adding a touch of diversity to two sexually charged comedies. Both now seem like a waste of her talents.
Viswanathan’s performance is consistently and correctly confused throughout HALA, trying to deal with both mundane and unique challenges at home and at school. She’s clearly attracted to boys, but is culturally conditioned against speaking with them, despite her curiosity about love, sex, and relationships. She’s also much closer to her father than her mother Eram (Purbi Joshi), at least until she discovers her father’s secret, which leads to learning a lot about her mother as well. Viswanathan navigates all these challenges well, making every choice feel natural, even when they aren’t the best choices.
It’s the choices that Hala ends up making, driven in large part by Baig’s thematic choices, that will challenge every viewer at least in some way. Those challenges will depend on the viewer’s particular ethics and social outlook. Conservative viewers may be upset with the sexual topics being discussed. Liberal viewers may be upset with conservative choices. Muslims may be upset with the portrayal of Muslim men. Atheists may be upset with anything Islamic at all. On one level, it helps amplify the inability of Hala to meet everyone’s expectations, perhaps similar to Baig’s inability to meet everyone’s expectations for the film. I just think a few choices felt more sensational than pragmatic for supporting the story, which may turn away more viewers than expected.
Story choices aside, HALA is a beautiful film to watch, consistently well-framed with lots of excellent fixed camera work. Viswanathan’s costumes, and Baig’s framing, always draw the viewer to Hala’s face, where a great deal of emotion gets communicated. Baig also helps illustrate the difference between our private and public lives, especially within Muslim families, and the ways that is changing. And thankfully, this film does stay away from any and all hate crimes, even if there is some subtext about her difference. I still think it’s important to tell stories about hate crimes against Muslims, particularly given the anti-Muslim sentiments that flare up within this country. But I don’t think they need to be part of every Muslim story, and actually by seeing films without a seemingly obligatory hate crime or scene of discrimination is actually a sign of more social acceptance and the mainstreaming of a diverse, moderate Islam within the United States.
HALA is an excellent sophomore effort from AppleTV+, examining the Muslim coming-of-age experience within the United States, well directed by Minhal Baig with some difficult story choices. Geraldine Viswanathan excels as Hala, managing the complex character and story well, even when her character makes bad decisions. Fans of coming-of-age dramas, or dramas about the Muslim experience in modern Western society, will definitely appreciate this film on some level, even if being challenged on others.
Rotten Tomatoes: 87%
Metacritic: 75
One Movie Punch: 7.6/10
HALA (2019) is rated Rand is currently playing on AppleTV+.
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