Brides, a raw, compassionate, colourful chronicle of teenage friendship and radicalisation, was inspired by the case of Shamima Begum, the London schoolgirl who left home to join Islamic State.
Nadia Fall’s character-driven film is an intimate portrait of two 15-year-olds, Doe (Ebada Hassan) and Muna (The Witcher’s Safiyya Ingar), wrestling with domestic turmoil, abusive father figures and social exclusion in a grim British seaside town.
It’s 2014, and for the girls Islamic extremism in Syria is a romantic cause and an escape from a place where anti-Muslim sentiment is scrawled in graffiti. Even an innocent shoot-’em-up game at the arcade solicits racist comments from a local.
Suhayla El-Bushra’s screenplay is as unconcerned with political intricacies as the blissfully ignorant teenagers it depicts. The focus, instead, is the close, volatile friendship between Doe, a devout Somali-born Muslim girl, and Muna, her loud-mouthed British-Pakistani best friend.
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If you’ve ever struggled with the urge to shout at the screen when some idiot wanders into a darkened cellar during a horror movie, this debut feature from the artistic director of the Young Vic theatre, in London, will likely tip you into megaphone mode.
At every turn the girls’ reckless journey from the UK to Syria seems cursed. The online presence that promised to “guide them on their journey” fails to collect them in Istanbul, where their passports and bus tickets are stolen.
They ought to take the hint. Instead they soldier on, often with the giggly enthusiasm of gap-year girls on a post-GCSE blowout holiday, towards the fairy tale they believe awaits them in Syria. Thrilling location shots from Turkey – whirling dervishes, winding streets, ornate mosques – add to the misplaced sense of adventure.
Hassan and Ingar deliver compelling, complementary performances: Hassan is as quiet and vulnerable as Ingar is fiery and charismatic. Clarissa Cappellani’s fluid cinematography and Fiona DeSouza’s stylish edits and inserts keep pace with the youthful exuberance. Judicious use of flashback sets up a gut-punch coda.
