(Reviews of My Favourite Cake; In Camera; Sky Peals; The Queen of My Dreams; and Knock Out Blonde: The Kellie Maloney Story)
MY FAVOURITE CAKE.
Anyone fortunate enough to see My Favourite Cake will immediately wonder why no UK distributor had the insight to pick up Risk of Acid Rain (2015) or Ballad of a White Cow (2020), the previous pictures by the Iranian directing team of Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, who have also made the documentary, The Invincible Diplomacy of Mr Naderi (2018). So committed are the longtime partners to telling it like it is that they are currently under house arrest in Tehran while facing Revolutionary Court charges of peddling propaganda against the regime for depicting a woman drinking alcohol and dancing with a man to whom she is not married, while not wearing a hijab.
Retired nurse Mahin (Lily Farhadpour) has been a widow for almost half her life. She is now 70 and rises at noon because she has trouble sleeping and gets cross when her daughter calls to check she's okay. Afternoons are devoted to watering her plants, some of which she stole from a local park when she was younger. Nights are spent knitting in front of sentimental melodramas, but she enjoys hosting `the old gals' for dinner parties, at which they gossip, diss men, and tease resident hypochondriac, Puran (Mansoureh Ilkhani), when she suggests they watch a video of her colonoscopy.
Feeling low after the table talk had turned to isolation, Mahin calls her daughter. But she's too preoccupied with her youngest to chat and Mahin paints her nails while watching a romance on television, after having applied make-up in the bathroom mirror to determine whether she's still attractive. Her daughter lives abroad and sends clothes, which she urges her mother to wear indoors. But she never does and finds herself reminiscing to a taxi driver (Mohammad Heidari) about the youthful nights when she used to get dolled up and wear high heels and plunging necklines to see famous singers at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
Singularly failing to flirt with a man in the bakery, Mahin goes to the hotel's new coffee bar. It's empty and she decides to have tea because she doesn't know how to scan the QR code on the menu. Sitting on a bench in the park, she asks an old man when the elderly come for exercise and pretends she is asking so her husband can come. However, she gets distracted when the Morality Police try to arrest a girl (Melika Pazouki) for not covering her hair and Mahin gets into a row with the male officer, who threatens to bundle her into his van. She fights her corner, however, and is rewarded with a kiss from the girl, who envies the fact that old ladies got to enjoy life before the Revolution and now don't have to bother about how they look. Letting the remark go, Mahin watches as the girl rushes off to join her boyfriend, even though she risks being detained again.
At the pensioners' restaurant, Mahin listens to four friends kvetching and overhears that they all have wives, unlike Faramarz (Esmail Mehrabi). He's a cabby with a grey moustache and Mahin is so taken by him that she spends the rest of the day waiting for him to return to the rank so he can drive her home. Politely, he agrees and says nothing when she sits in the front seat. She admits having fibbed to his colleagues that she knew him and introduces herself. As they talk, he reveals that he is unmarried and has no children, as his body is filled with shrapnel after being sent to fight against Iraq while in the army. He has driven a cab for 20 years, but once spent a month in prison after being arrested for playing the tat in a wedding band.
Convinced he's a decent man who is as lonely as she is, Mahin asks Faramarz if he would like to spend the evening at her place and he agrees. Stopping to collect a prescription from the chemist, he hurries back through downpour and calls the rank to say he's off for the night. Mahin smiles at the prospect of having company and asks Faramarz to drop her off and park a couple of streets away to stop the neighbours from gossiping.
Tentatively poking his head around the door, Faramarz compliments Mahin on her home and she ushers him into the kitchen for food and wine. She has changed outfit and put on lipstick and he is surprised that they're the same age. Sitting at the breakfast bar, he admits he's become invisible with age, but isn't afraid of dying. They agree that it would be hard on anyone who finds them alone in their homes, but she insists they have many years ahead of them, as they toast to health and the future.
He explains how he was matchmade by his mother with a very religious woman, who divorced him when he couldn't give her children. But he admits that praying and fasting isn't his thing and Mahin nods understandingly. Indeed, when a nosy neighbour (Effat Rasoulinezhad) inquires about hearing a man's voice, she's given short shrift and the emboldened Mahin decides to eat in her walled yard, when Faramarz offers to fix her broken lights. She bakes a cake while he works and picks him some fresh herbs. He promises to bring some flowers to plant in her rich soil and they agree to make their own wine, in a fermentation bowl they will hide in a hollow in the yard. Relishing the idea of having someone with whom to make plans, the pair chatter away and concur that everything is better when done with love.
As they eat, Faramarz ventures that most men don't get to experience a woman's love and Mahin tells him that he should be feeling it right now. She offers to dance for him and is pleased when he reveals he's too tipsy from the wine to drive home. Back indoors, Mahin changes again and poses them for a selfie, which she makes him promise to keep to himself. Spotting some photos on her wall, he claims she looks better now than she did in her honeymoon picture. She puts on some music and asks if Faramarz has had other lovers since his wife. He admits to a brief romance with a woman who left for Australia with a richer man, as he wishes that Mahin had found him sooner.
Taking a pill on a trip to the bathroom, Faramarz dances around the room with Mahin, who thinks he looks cute when he lets himself go. Feeling woozy, as the wine and tiredness hit, he collapses on the settee. She reaches for his hand, as she reassures him that she wants him to spend the night. Asking if he can shower, he suggests she joins him, but she is too bashful. Instead, they sit fully clothed under the water and joke that characters showering together in foreign films don't know how to scrub each other's backs.
Mahin ices the orange blossom cake, as Faramarz puts on some of her husband's clothes. Sneaking into her room, she puts on some perfume and ventures into the guest room, where she finds Faramarz dead on the bed. Being a nurse, she tries to massage his heart, but it's too late and she asks God why he has allowed this to happen to her, as she holds back the tears.
Waking up next morning, Mahin snuggles under Faramarz's arm. But she is thinking rationally and knows she will be punished for having a man in her home. So, she calls a gardener (Mozafer Esmaeli) to dig a pit for flowers in her yard before washing the body and sewing it into an old bedspread. Tutting on finding a blister pack of Viagra in his pocket, she puts a small piece of cake into Faramarz's mouth before covering his face. When darkness falls, she drags the shroud through the house and into the yard. Pulling back the blue cloth to kiss his forehead, she hauls the body into the hole and starts filling it in. As the morning breeze rustles the foliage, Mahin sits with her back to the camera so we can't see her sadness and dread.
What a double bill this would make with Elene Naveriani's Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry (2023), although a goodly supply of tissues would be necessary. Not everyone will condone the abrupt turn to the dark side, but it's difficult to imagine how this poignant drama could end any other way. The dialogue from the soppy sagas that Mahin watches on TV leave Moghaddam and Sanaeeha with little option. Moreover, could you imagine the trouble they would be in if the next set of red lines had been crossed?
This is a hugely courageous picture that dares to explore the simple human feelings that so many lonely people endure without hope of any sort of physical or spiritual consolation. The odds of a Mahin and a Faramarz meeting by chance and forging such an immediate and intimate bond are admittedly small. But the fact that they just might makes this exquisitely judged chamber piece so winning and wonderful.
Lily Farhadpour is exceptional, as the widow deciding to risk all for one last taste of happiness after deciding long-distance phone calls and gal pal dinners can only fulfil so many needs. She surprises herself by how easy it turns out to be to find the soulmate she knew must be out there somewhere and Esmail Mehrabi fits the bill perfectly. Twinkling courteously, he goes with the flow with a mix of disbelieving enthusiasm and charming trust in the stranger seeking to reconnect with the free spirit she once was.
The sequence in the nocturnal yard, as the lights come on after many years of darkness deftly sets the tone, as Mahin and Faramarz make simple, practical plans to share small pleasures. But the concern that this is all too good to be true - and they won't be able to have their cake and eat it, too - nags away before it morphs into a lingering fear that Mahin won't get away with her `crime', as several people will have seen her at the restaurant and the taxi rank, while Faramarz's car is parked around the corner.
Shooting a number of scenes in secret during the street protests that followed the death in custody of Mahsa Amini (who had been detained for not wearing a hijab), the co-directors collude with cinematographer Mohamad Hadadi in following the besotted strangers around the homey interiors designed by Amir Hivand (who also worked with Moghaddam on the costumes) in order to convey the hesitancy that keeps intimacy just out of reach until a sombre 360° pan reveals just how great the distance has actually been. Yet, while Moghaddam and Sanaeeha are to be commended for the choreography of their film, as well as its anti-authoritarianism and body positivity, its most subversive element is the sheer love of life that the septuagenarians rediscover after 35 years of theocratic repression.
Moghaddam has worked in the past with Jafar Panahi, who is the master of completing films under the noses of the Iranian authorities. But let's hope that she doesn't need to apply any acquired skills when she and Sanaeeha come to make their next picture. In the meantime, there are those two earlier outings, which should at least be made available on disc or a streaming platform.
IN CAMERA.
Having written a play while studying English at the University of Salford, Naqqash Khalid made his first short, Parts (2016), in New York in just 12 hours with a crew recruited from Craigslist. Two years after making Stock (2018) for Sky's Art 50 project (during which the lead actor's visa expired), he was named a Star of Tomorrow by Screen Daily. Now, after a lengthy gestation period that saw him ditch his PhD thesis and a teaching gig, 30 year-old Khalid has released his debut feature, In Camera, which he has labelled `a fairytale about ambition, performance and identity' that has been made for a generation `which can only focus for a minute at a time'.
Cross with his agent because he's trapped in a cookie-cutter cop show when he wants to do a film with Naqqash Khalid, an actor (Aston McAuley) barely acknowledges Aden (Nabhaan Rizwan), who has been playing the corpse in a scene, when he says his goodbyes. The production assistant is embarrassed that wardrobe allowed him to get fake blood over his own shirt, but Aden shrugs. It's all in a day's work for a British Asian actor.
Having been left slightly baffled by an acting class in which the teacher (Clare Burt) insists that rebound repetition can reveal character, Aden discovers from flatmate Bo (Rory Fleck Byrne) that the new tenant is moving in later that day. An overworked junior doctor, Bo asks Aden if he ever forgets facts and envies him being in a job where other people tell him where to stand, what to wear, and what to say. Nonplussed, Aden agrees to dinner with the newcomer and sidles off an audition.
He ignores a flirtatious insinuation from the receptionist before finding himself in a cramped room full of white guys in white t-shirts. The casting director (Sarah-Jane Potts) commends him on being so ordinary looking before dismissing a question about his character in a toothpaste commercial and ordering him to make his smile `whiter'.
While Bo calls home and places his stethoscope on the vending machine that gobbles his money during an epic shift, Aden has to ask for an overdraft fee to be waived because he has funds to amend his overdraft. He attends another line-up, but is overlooked by the casting director's inexperienced female assistant.
Arriving home, Aden meets Conrad (Amir El-Masry), who invites him to share his takeaway. Confident and snazzily dressed, he explains that he has started a company advising men on what to wear. He tells Aden that this is `our time', as the fashion and film industries are waking up to their needs and edging towards the diversity that will make them the go-to people. Tongue-tied, Aden seems unconvinced, but Conrad is just as garrulous when an exhausted Bo comes home and can barely string together a coherent sentence.
As his next audition, where he is again called by a time slot rather than a name, Aden asks about the part he is reading for in a pilot and is given a blizzard of information that might have been useful beforehand by the woman who will run the lines with him (Bryony Davies). As he stands in front of the camera, the image cuts to the teen sci-fi setting and Kyle (Aden in a blonde wig) tells his high school classmate (Davies) about needing to discover who he is after realising he's an alien. Adopting a generic American accent, he commits to the role and is still visualising himself as Kyle when the assistant informs him that his tape will be assessed and he'll be notified about any callback.
As Bo wakes on a corridor floor in his green hospital scrubs, Conrad calls Aden and asks if he can stand in for a model at a shoot the following day. Reluctantly he agrees before joining a therapist (Naomi Radcliffe) who has asked him to play the role of the deceased son of Joanna (Josie Walker), a mother from Northern Ireland who needs closure. Despite Aden getting a nosebleed, the session goes well enough for Joanna to ask if he would take her number with a view to joining her and her husband for dinner or a walk.
Standing with fellow hopefuls in a small room in a dark t-shirt, Aden is surprised to see a latecomer (Antonio Aakeel) offered a chair before being whisked off. One of the others curses that they all might as well go home, as he gets every job. When Aden asks why, they agree it's because he's so `unproblematic'.
Driving home, Bo sees a vending machine in the middle of a country road. Getting out, he buys a chocolate bar and gets back into his car to munch on it. Aden, meanwhile, is at Conrad's shoot. He is taken aback when the photographer (Gana Bayarsaikhan) reveals that she quit acting for the very reasons he finds it suits him. She suggests that he would be better for the campaign than the model, as he gives off a real person vibe that few can manage. Conrad senses something is wrong, but Aden insists he's fine, despite leaving hurriedly for another audition.
After much thought, Aden calls Joanna and they arrange a supper. He makes it clear that his rare is £450 and goes to the house, where he puts on one of her son's shirts. She asks for a hug and he keeps his arms by his side as she tentatively leans into him. They are chatting at the table when her husband (Jamie Ballard) gets home. But he can't cope with the charade and orders Aden to leave. Although he tries to remain in character, Joanna snaps at him when her husband begins to howl in distress. However, he waits by the front door for his payment and gives Joanna a heartfelt hug before rushing outside and vomiting.
At his next audition, Aden is seen as a bearded jihadist with a gun over his shoulder. The woman reading with him (in her character costume) suggests trying an accent. When Aden asks her to be more specific, she tells him to attempt something Middle Eastern and he turns away when she urges him to have a play with it. Riding home in a taxi, the driver asks what he does. Aden manages a smile when he says he'll soon be in Hollywood. But he's less amused when the driver asks where he is originally from and confides that he came to Britain in the 1970s, but has bought a plot of land to build a retirement home so he can be buried in his homeland.
Back at the flat, Bo is having his hair cut by Conrad. He describes a recurring dream in which he is drenched with blood cascading down a sleek glass building, while four onlookers urge him to do something because he's a doctor. Conrad shares that he dreams in monochrome, but Aden swears he never dreams and declines the offer of a trim. Nevertheless, he shaves off his beard after covering his face in shaving foam and telling himself to smile and say the words on the page, as he stares into the mirror.
Next morning, having previously caught flies in a glass and let them out of the window, he crushes one crawling over a script. He borrows a white t-shirt from Conrad and mouths some of his buzz phrases in front of the mirror while wearing a leather jacket that his roommate had swiped from the fashion shoot. Putting on a new front, Aden goes to an audition and learns that the man who books everything has had his face scarred in an attack. The other aspirants consider it the luck of the game, as they all now have a better chance of getting work.
Having scarfed his way through the contents of the fridge, Aden is looking at his online profile when Bo gets home. Mistaking him for Conrad, he is surprised to see him because he was supposed to be going away. Slipping into the role, Aden adopts Conrad's mannerisms to explain away the food shortage and apologise by cutting his hair. Bo reminds him that he had done that a couple of days ago and laughs when Aden tells him that he's going to kill his shift (as that wouldn't be appropriate for a doctor). They fist pump and Bo says it's good talking with him before a cut shows Aden sitting in the same position, bewildered by the exchange that's just taken place.
Adopting his Conrad pose, Aden plays the game with the next casting director, who warms to his chilled approach. He gets to play a scene on a rehearsal set in which a son fights back after his father tries to interfere in his life. This serves him well when Conrad returns having been made creative director by a trendy company and offers him a chance to come to America and work for him as a sideline to his acting. But Aden walks away, declaring that he's nobody's shadow.
Describing dreams in which he's alternately running and laughing, Aden (wearing a white tracksuit with a red and blue stripe across the chest) has flashes back to his daily routine while frenziedly stabbing Conrad with a kitchen knife. As Bo gets home to a full fridge before climbing inside the washing machine, Aden strides purposefully through the streets. He's now a star and feigns not to recognise the production assistant (Hussina Raja) who had treated him like a nobody on the cop show. Sending her for a water, he takes the racist praise of the ignorant director (`You're like the Brown version of…what was his name again…?') before barely acknowledging (`Yeah, sure') the British Asian extra who has just played a scene with him in the front seat of a studiobound car. And so the wheel turns...
Having decided that the `three-act film is no longer fit for purpose', Khalid decided to structure the action around `loops, cycles, tessellations, geometric shapes, and things looping back over and over again'. The result is dynamic, dizzying, and disorientating, as this darkly comic, but deeply serious picture frog-marches the viewer through their casual preconceptions, unconscious prejudices, and entitled indifferences. It's impossible not be shaken, rattled, and rolled by a work of genuine ambition, acuity, and audacity. Khalid has said that if he never makes another film, he will be satisfied because he got to produce his debut on his own terms. One can only hope on this evidence, however, that In Camera is the start of a long career.
It's not without its jagged edges. The subplots involving Bo and Conrad don't quite work, even if - as has been suggested - they are both figments of Aden's imagination. Some have even claimed that Bo could be Joanna's son (although the accents don't quite align for that). Whatever their status in the scenario and regardless of the accomplished performances of Rory Fleck Byrne and Amir El-Masry, this is All About Aden (to paraphrase the title of Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1950 Oscar-winning treatise on the psychological quirks of acting folk). More to the point, this is all about Nabhaan Rizwan, as he limns someone who only gets close to being comfortable when he's not forced to be himself. Shifting sublimely between being enigmatic and empathetic, coy and cocky, and vulnerable and venal, he never once lets the mask of inscrutability slip to allow us a glimpse of the real man reflected in the mirror, as he decides to act in everyday life because he's better at role playing than living.
The personal elements leave a deeper impression than the barbed self-reflexive satire aimed at the cynicism and tokenism of the thesping milieu. In particular - even though it's inspired by Yorgos Lanthimos's Alps (2011) - Aden's relationship with Joanna is fascinating, as we learn nothing about his background and are left to wonder whether he is working out issues from his own youth in seeking to help a grieving mother (albeit for a handsome fee). Or is this more evidence of the Method madness that starts to take over after Conrad's pep talk, as Aden strives to represent in order to avoid becoming irrelevant?
Ably abetted by production designer Guy Thompson and cinematographer Tasha Back, Khalid (or `the Asian dude' as he's dubbed en passant) achieves some neat Stricklandesque pastiches of tele-aesthetics, while Ricardo Saraiva's sharp editing and Paul Davies's attuned sound design jolt us between events occurring in a disconcerting variety of Mancunian settings that reinforce the creeping dehumanising soullessness of modern existence - at least from a male perspective, as despite Josie Walker's touching turn as a distraught mother and Misha Adesanya, Lindsay Bennett-Thompson, and Bryony Davies displaying commendable versatility in multiple minor roles, this is very much a boys' own story.
SKY PEALS.
Themes of identity and isolation are explored by Moin Hussain in Sky Peals, a feature debut that follows on from a trio of notable shorts: Holy Thursday (2015), Real Gods Require Blood (2017), and Naphtha (2018). Echoes of the latter can be heard throughout a mournfully atmospheric blend of character study and sci-fi that was originally entitled Birchanger Green.
Adam Muhammad (Faraz Ayub) is having a rough time. Despite struggling with social anxiety, he's been put on counter duty at Big Burger Trip, a fast food outlet that forms part of a service station somewhere in Yorkshire. Additionally, his mother, Donna (Claire Rushbrook), is selling the house to move to Herefordshire with her new chap. But more disturbing, Hassan (Jeff Mirza), the estranged father who had called out of the blue asking to meet up, is found dead in his car and Adam - who is known as Umer to the Pakistani side of the family - is invited to the funeral in Peterborough by his Uncle Hamid (Simon Nagra).
Returning home to find Hassan's red Volvo has been left on the driveway, Adam finds an estate agent showing someone round the property. He orders him to move out, but Adam has nowhere to go and barricades himself indoors and hides in the bathroom when the car alarm goes off during the night. At work, the next day, he keeps getting in the way and has his arm burnt on a hot plate. He meets Jeff (Steve Oram), the new manager, and Tara (Natalie Gavin), a single mom who has joined as an assistant. But he's too distracted to talk after seeing CCTV footage of his father being found in his vehicle in the service station car park.
When Donna calls, he asks why Hassan had left and she claimed he never really found a way to fit in. Trying to get a sense of him, Adam lays Hassan's clothes on the floor. He also finds an envelope of old photographs in the car, when Hamid calls with an offer to help sell it. Apparently, Hassan had been adopted after he had wandered into the village in Pakistan and Hamid remembers him claiming to be special because he had been sent from elsewhere.
At work, Jeff gets Tara to have a look at the burn on his arm. She realises the man in the car park was Adam's father and tries to offer her sympathy. But he finds it too uncomfortable and sidles away. When he goes to view the CCTV footage, he sees his father wandering around the empty services and is astonished to see him vanish in a flash of light on the overhead walkway. Jeff catches Adam in the office and he fibs that he was trying to work out a way to ease the single queue at busy times, which he reckons form because people don't like being alone.
Jeff reminds Adam of the work social that night and he is about to leave when Tara finds him. She explains how she keeps moving around and jokes that her mother had claimed she found it hard to belong. They dance and Adam starts to relax when a sudden crush of bodies means he drifts away from her and Tara seems put out. Confused, Adam beats a retreat, just as Jeff announces from the stage that he's been promoted.
Having tried to explain to a doctor how he keeps having daydreams that presage episodes in which he moves without knowing how he got there, Adam dons Hassan's overcoat and retraces his steps at the services, even riding the upward escalator. Arriving for work, he's appalled to discover that Adam has made him a door greeter because he's convinced he's a people person.
The water has been switched off at the house, but Adam is still living there when Donna announces she is coming to collect the last of her stuff from storage. Wandering over to the service hotel to collect the coat he'd left behind at the social, he finds himself in a self-help session, where he stuns the group by claiming that his father might have been an alien. Forced to sleep in the car after being locked out of the house and finding his belongings left by the bins, Adam washes at the services before going to work. When chatting to a workman fixing the hand dryer, he confides that it feels odd to know that he's not who he thought he was. But he doesn't get a response and feels perplexed again when the hospital calls to say he needs to be booked in to check on some irregularities with his blood tests.
Donna explains how Hassan had found it hard to settle, while sitting in the garage on her old settee. He had refused to discuss his past and she gives Adam a consolatory hug. However, she insists she has a right to a fresh start after having done everything on her own for so long. Feeling dislodged, Adam goes to work that night in services that have started to resemble a space station.
He's asked to keep an eye on Steph (Maizie Wickson) because there's no sign of Tara. She thinks he's weird and he panics when she wanders off. Jeff asks him to try greeting to impress a couple of inspectors assessing his probationary period, but he fails to impose himself on the customers, who join whichever queue they want. Moreover, he backs into someone, whose tray hits the floor. As he experiences momentary blackouts, the situation gets out of control and Adam simply sits at a table in a daze.
Tara chases him when he stalks out and tells him that he can't keep running away. He snaps back that she does the same and insists that he has an excuse, as he's not normal. As she leaves, every alarm in the car park goes off and a bewildered Adam walks slowly towards his father's vehicle and silence descends when he touches the bonnet.
Accepting an invitation from his uncle, Adam goes to see his grandmother (Teresa Mondol). She lives in a home and is suffering from dementia and mistakes Adam for Hassan. Taking his hand, she tells him that he was always the special one and understands why he must leave. Declining Hamid's offer of a bed, Adam drives to the services, where he finds Hassan on the walkway. He tells him that it's quiet where he comes from and that sometimes it's better to be alone.
Adam passes through a door into what resembles a grand lobby. He asks Hassan where everyone is and is surprised to learn that it's just the two of them. Leaning his head on his father's shoulder, Adam looks back at the door and hears the murmur of voices. As random images and shards of light and colour bombard him, he retraces his steps and finds himself alone on the walkway. He wanders towards the concourse and is pleased to see people milling around, going about their business.
He finds Tara on a cigarette break and she teases him about wanting to be alone. The scene cuts to them sitting on plastic moulded chairs looking out across a stretch of grass and woodland. Adam mumbles that he's never been here before and Tara opines that it's quite nice.
If the ending doesn't quite work, what comes before in this accomplished debut is often compelling and poignant. This is largely because Moin Hussain doesn't feel obliged to justify and explain and the resulting dose of ambiguity should intrigue more viewers than it frustrates. A little more humour outside Steve Oram's rather obvious Brummy boss might not have gone amiss without turning this into a British variation on John Sayles's The Brother From Another Planet (1984). But the doleful tone augments Adam's awkwardness, as he struggles to deal with quotidian events while trying to process extraordinary information.
Nothing is revealed of Adam's background or the events that brought him to the burger bar. His relationship with his mother seems solid, in spite of her eagerness to leave, but nothing is said about how much thought he had given to Hassan in the intervening two decades. Clearly, he had seen nothing of the Pakistani side of the family, but we don't discover the effect that this had on his upbringing or schooling or on the anxiety that he exhibits in the most straightforward social situations. Such is the ingenuity of Faraz Ayub's performance, however, that the alienated Adam never seems pitiable, as he drifts through the shadows trying to make sense of who he is and why. Perhaps the blood tests might provide clues? But they are (in)conveniently forgotten.
The measured, if not meandering pace of the quest enables Hussain to explore notions of isolation and assimilation, although it's interesting to note that Adam/Umer (names of significance in the Bible and the Quran) isn't subjected to any overt racial discrimination. Indeed, family members and colleagues alike accept him on his own terms, with even Jeff's misjudgement of his aptitudes feeling well meant. By contrast, Hassan merely offers him a way out without discussing the logistics, realities, or ramifications, although Adam is not the kind to make enquiries, let alone pry.
Given that he's so in the dark about his heritage and identity, it makes sense for Hussain and cinematographer Nick Cooke to shroud him in often impenetrable 35mm gloom. Editor Nse Asuquo is similarly at liberty to disorientate with the flashes and jump cuts that denote the sensory derangement that precedes Adam's syncopal jaunting. More mischievous are the shots making the services look like a ship becalmed in space, with the expanses of emptiness prompting comparisons with the research station in Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972), although there are also echoes of Christopher Petit's Unrequited Love (2006) and Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin (2013).
Born in the East End of London, but raised in Norfolk from the age of 11, Hussain studied cinema and photography at the University of Leeds. When Screen Daily selected him among the Stars of Tomorrow in 2018, he confided that his first feature would be set in a Norfolk coastal community that is forced by a beached whale to confront the maritime myth that such an occurrence augurs the awakening of an ancient evil. Now that would be a sophomore outing!
THE QUEEN OF MY DREAMS.
Following a number of shorts dating back to 2012, Fawzia Mizra makes her feature debut with The Queen of My Dreams, a mother-daughter drama that plays out over three timeframes. The title comes from `Meri Sapno Ki Rani', a song in Shakti Samanta's Bollywood classic, Aradhana (1969), in which Rajesh Khanna plays both Sharmila Tagore's lost love and her estranged son. Mizra adopts a similar tactic, but the loose structuring leaves the flashbacks hanging along with the meaningful messages they are supposed to convey.
It's 1999 and Azra (Amrit Kaur) is studying in Toronto, but still hasn't got round to telling her conservative Muslim mother, Mariam (Nimra Bucha), that she is living with her girlfriend, Rachel (Kya Mosey). Doctor father Hassan (Hamza Haq) is more relaxed. But, when he dies while visiting family in Karachi, Azra has to fly out for the funeral with brother Zahid (Ali A. Kazmi). From the moment she lands, Azra feels resentful towards her mother, who refuses to allow her to play any part in the funeral rite. But flashbacks to 1969 reveal that the 22 year-old Mariam (played by Kaur) was also often at loggerheads with her own mother, Amira (Gul-e-Rana).
Mariam had fallen for Hassan while Amira was trying to matchmake her. They had pretended to be strangers when formally introduced and fibbed about staying in Pakistan, even though Hassan had already been offered a job in Canada. This sparks a series of flashbacks to 1989 Nova Scotia, where Mariam (played by Bucha) relies on the tweenage Amira (Gul-e-Rana) to help her sell tupperware in the hope of feeling less alien in her insular community. However, when Mariam almost catches Amira kissing her best friend at the end of her birthday party, their relationship changes forever.
Although offering some fascinating insights into Pakistani society in the Ayub Khan era, this is a standard issue saga, in which a once rebellious daughter turns into a reactionary mother. Nimra Bucha adeptly captures the sadness of a disappointed outsider, while Amrit Kaur plays her twin roles with contrasting spirit and resentment. Ayana Manji also has some nice moments, when she and a Jehovah's Witness classmate are required to push their desks into the corridor during Bible study.
However, Mirza rather sidesteps the thorny issue of the status of women within patriarchal religions. Similarly, the notion of queerness is considered with more frankness and incisiveness in Maryam Keshavarz's The Persian Version, which turns on the strained relationship of an aspiring Iranian American actress and a traditional mother with a chequered past.
The production design and costumes are admirable, in evoking both cultural and cinematic nostalgia. Yet the period shifts often feel unmotivated. Consequently, it's never entirely clear how 1999 Azra is experiencing them and particularly how she comes to learn about her mother's ordeals when the older Mariam keeps them hidden. Despite these flaws and the odd gap in the narrative logic, however, the committed performances ensure that this semi-autobiographical dramedy remains engaging and affecting.
KNOCKOUT BLONDE: THE KELLIE MALONEY STORY.
It's hard not to have misgivings about any documentary profile that claims to be `based on' the life of its subject. However, the decision of directors Rick Lazes, Tom DeNucci, and Seth Koch to use cheesily ill-judged dramatic reconstructions to pad out the archive footage further undermines the credibility of Knock Out Blonde: The Kellie Maloney Story, even though one can't doubt the sincerity of the project's bid to allow the former Frank Maloney to speak openly about their career in boxing, their family life, and their journey to becoming a transgender woman.
In a blur of images, we learn that Maloney was born in Peckham in 1953 into an Irish Catholic family and named after St Francis of Assisi. Father Thomas refused to allow his three sons to go shopping or help mother Maureen around the house. Yet, from an early age, Maloney dreamt of being a woman. Small in stature, Maloney became interested in boxing after a teacher suggested it was a way to deal with being bullied at school.
However, it soon became clear that the 5ft 2in Maloney didn't have the stature or the ringcraft to become a successful pro and a stint as a trainee chef followed, during some fondling by a superior was met with a knife through the hand. Married to Jackie and the father of Emma, Maloney decided to seek the thrill experienced at a London cinema of seeing Muhammad Ali fight Joe Frazier for the World Heavyweight title. Pursuing the dream proved problematic until Maloney, who was heavily in debt, signed contender Lennox Lewis in 1989.
The image blizzard continues as Emma recalls attending Lewis's showdown with Frank Bruno. But the success was tarnished because Maloney was living a lie and considering suicide. Nevertheless, he met and married Tracey and daughter Sophie recalls being a tot when she was thrust into the circus surrounding Lewis, as Arthur Knight and Joe Dunbar prepared him to fight Evander Holyfield in 1999. Sister Libby soon followed. But days before the biggest bout in British boxing history for a century, Maloney had gone to a club in Staten Island and dressed as a woman before dashing back to downtown New York to celebrate Tracey's birthday.
When the Internet arrived, Maloney started to research the subject of gender transition and spoke on the phone to a counsellor hoping to to told that the rising personality of Kellie was just a phase. During a trip to Thailand an encounter with a ladyboy in a bar brought back memories of a photo seen in childhood that had left a deep impression. However, on hearing a fellow promoter describe pummelling a ladyboy who had hit on him, Maloney knew how impossible it would be to stay at the top in boxing as Kellie.
Angry with Lewis for appearing in Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's 11 (2001) prior to figthting Hasim Rahman in South Africa, Maloney realised that the management team had expanded and that the time had come to walk away. Signing Irish Olympic bronze medallist Darren Sutherland seemed to promise further success. But the 27 year-old hanged himself in 2009 and Maloney had a heart attack on discovering the body. Feeling guilt at the fighter's mental health issues, Maloney contacted therapist Jan Upfold, but she quickly recognised that other issues were at play.
Shocked by the news, Tracey sought to protect her daughters and Kellie found herself relying on Emma to help him formulate a plan of campaign. In talking-head interviews, Kellie recalls telling Maureen and speaking to a Sunday Mirror reporter in August 2014 when another outlet threatened to print the scoop. Scarcely had the family come to terms with the shift than Kellie went on Celebrity Big Brother - although we are treated to a montage of chat show appearances before then and snippets of Sophie and Libby advising Kellie (who they still called `dad') on clothes, make-up, and shoes.
Buoyed by the acceptance from this experience, Kellie had surgery on her nostrils before undergoing body transformation. The film-makers make effective use of video diary pieces that Kellie made on her phone in her hospital bed to give an insight into her mindset as the day approached. Also included is post-operative footage, as Kellie came to terms with the physical and psychological impact of the surgery. But the cutaway to a young Frances looking into a full-length mirror and seeing a girl with long hair feels like a tacky miscalculation.
Despite the initial positivity, a trip to Portugal during a down period resulted in a suicide attempt that would have succeeded had Upland not been next door. Kellie appeared on Loose Women to stress that the anguish had not been caused by regret at transitioning and she emphasises the importance of talking when dark thoughts descend. Broadway star Alexandra Billings concurs and proclaims that Kellie's ability to survive makes her a teacher to those who don't or won't understand transgender people.
The film loses focus here, as we see Kellie at Pride, making speeches, and visiting trans people in India. We hear from macho brother Eugene, as he comes to appreciate that Kellie is happy now (and they patch up over Maureen's dementia) and see snippets of everyday life that lack any sort of context, but reinforce the sense of contentment. In wishing Kellie well, Tracey still feels frustration at what she went through, but the message comes across loud and clear with Billings providing some bells and whistles.
Cathy McAleer and Kellie's return to boxing in 2019 restores a sense of direction to the film, only for it to end abruptly after footage of a single bout. This leaves five years unaccounted for and one wonders whether those interested in the Maloney story might not be better off seeking out the five-part 2021 documentary series, Knockout Blonde. Perhaps this found room to discuss the UKIP election candidacies for London mayor in 2004 and for the Barking parliamentary seat in 2010, which resulted in a lost deposit.
Besides the rat-a-tat editing of Robbie Savage, Jr., the best thing about this actuality is that everyone gets to have their say. Understandably, the tone becomes more generic in its advocacy of trans rights in the closing stages, once Kellie's remarkable story has been told with sincerity, if not always with finesse. The dramatisations were a rotten idea, as they look cheap and odd nothing, while actually managing to be offensive in recreating the discovery of Darren Sutherland's body. They certainly don't fill the void left by Lennox Lewis, whose absence from the interviewees in the second half of the story is never mentioned. Kellie's daughters do their bit, however, while her own contributions are often deeply moving. Let's hope she's pleased with the authorised results, as many will find this a frustrating profile that devotes too little time to formative experiences and the rationale behind the media blitz that accompanied Kellie going public. And, judging by the intra-credit chat between Kellie and Chelsea Brickham (who plays Frank and Kellie in the cutaways), this avenue might have yielded some intriguing insights, too.
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