072 REVIEW
f you dare to look at any headlines the morning
after an awards ceremony, you will most likely
encounter a few “firsts”. The 2020 Oscars offered
a fine example: Parasite was the first South Korean
film to be nominated for anything – and the first non-
English language title to win Best Picture. Historic wins
of this ilk do matter, but headlines tend to reduce a film
or person to simple milestones that unintentionally
speak for an entire nationality, religion or gender. And
it’s all getting a little tiresome.
The top-line ingredients of Haifaa Al Mansour’s
fourth feature, The Perfect Candidate, promise to
deliver a tired reproduction of a familiar formula, one
that sees a headstrong woman prove just how stubborn
and strong she is. Headlines aside, the fact that the
filmmaker was the first Saudi woman to ever direct a
feature does give this story an earned confidence.
Following a couple of English-language offerings
(including 2017 historical biopic Mary Shelley), Al-
Mansour returns to Saudi Arabia and shifts her focus
to Maryam, an ambitious young doctor running in the
municipal elections with the simple goal of repaving
a damaged road. Maryam’s obstacles, which might be
quickly written into a headline as “First! Woman! In!
Politics!”, are in fact fourfold. She isn’t taken seriously
as a political candidate because she’s first belittled
in her role as a doctor, second as the daughter of a
wedding singer, and third as a woman. What business
does she have rising above her station, the places she
belongs, the jobs she already works so hard at? And she
faces so much extra pushback: male patients refuse
to be seen by Maryam because of her gender; her
father doesn’t understand why she can’t just go intothe family business; plus she’s forced to cover her face
entirely when recording campaign videos.
A full, grassroots political campaign is not
something that people like Maryam usually do – but
Al Mansour skilfully convinces that there aren’t
millions of people exactly like Maryam out there.
The strict conditions of her circumstances are what
give her character credibility, while also allowing
the film to attain a greater level of sensitivity beyond
just delivering yet another cry for vague female
empowerment. There’s specific insistence on the
constraints women face in Saudi Arabia too: gendered
spaces; mandatory niqabs in public; and bookending
shots of Maryam driving her car alone – something
Saudi women have only been allowed to do since 2018.
Mila Al Zahrani plays Maryam with simultaneously
generous and wicked determination, listening to the
people she meets and searching for ways to give them
support, while staying true to what she knows she’s
worth. Maryam has two sisters bolstering her, with
the youngest asking, “Is this a women’s rights thing?”
This kind of blasé humour best encapsulates the film’s
mood, with the conviction to deliver a fiery message,
delivered in a playfully wrapping of irony.
The Perfect Candidate is more interested in
Maryam’s pragmatic thought processes than the flashy
drama of the actual vote. The results matter little, as
however many historic headlines are made, there is
always more work to be done. Al Mansour knows this- there is simply no time to dwell on the dregs of a
clickable news story. Every woman’s uphill battle will
look different, and here is one fleshed out admirably.
ELLA KEMP
I
The Perfect Candidate
Directed by
HAIFAA AL MANSOUR
Starring
MILA AL ZAHRANI
NORA AL AWADH
DAE AL HILALI
Released
27 MARCH
ANTICIPATION.
Al Mansour’s history-making
debut, Wadjda, is a beaut, but a
few mis-steps since then.
ENJOYMENT.
The framing of one woman
against the world could seem
overfamiliar, but is played
with brilliant confidence.
IN RETROSPECT.
Maryam’s story is one to
empathise with, but still precise
enough to entirely belong to her.