“Banat Thanawy” Film Review by Ahmed Habib

“Banat Thanawy” is everything you would expect from an Egyptian movie that’s trying so hard to bring the early 2000s Egyptian style of filmmaking back with new things that make it fit with today’s generations. The film overuses the words “social media” and “today’s generation” to remain hip, but uses the same structure of old Egyptian movies, with a supposedly funny first half, followed by a melodramatic second half, from which the viewer must learn the lesson from the film.

The film begins with Sally -played by Jamila Awad- arriving at school while live sharing every little detail about her and her friends online for everybody; which is an old cliché way of introducing the characters who don’t even have that depth to them to be such a hard thing to introduce in a proper way. We then dive into what’s seemingly the everyday life of these 5 girls and their struggles with money, sex, and religion. In this act of the film, it contained scenes that were present to provide social commentary that the writers did not even try to hide how preachy these scenes are.

The first act of the film was a bit slow and only showcases what happens to these girls. The film was trying too hard to be funny in the first half, but the acting did not help as it was really out of place that even if the jokes were funny, the viewer would be distracted from the strange acting and the tedious and repetitive soundtrack. The characters were very stereotypical and superficial that their problems are only discussed in one or two scenes which are also present just to prepare the viewer for a second half that had better fantasy elements than The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter combined.

The second half wasn’t that hard to predict. Every scene for every character in the first half was preparing for this ending, which the audience can smell, hear and see it coming a mile away. When the film reached the last 20 minutes the point of no return, where everything collapses for the 5 main characters at a much accelerated rate, which makes you stop and wonder: “why are they beginning a new conflict in the same scene of the other conflict?”, The ending was so rushed that it is impossible to get a grasp of how everything is tied together, it only leaves you with a feeling of regret and disappointment.

After such a bad, expected, and accelerated ending we get to know the moral of the film which is the biggest issue of the film. The moral of the film is simply that it’s okay to control the younger kids and that’s the conclusion which Sally comes up with at the end of the film; not just because some girls just got into a very unrealistic situation then it’s good to be controlled because this is what the writer wanted to deliver to audience, despite showing that this control was harmful to two of the 5 characters and without even trying to show this message in any of the scenes.

Being directed by an established director like Mahmoud Kamel who directed “Khareg El Khedma” and “Zodiac” which was with almost the same cast as well as being written by Ayman Salama sets a high standard that this film couldn’t get close to it, being predictable, edgy, preachy and melodramatic film that’s not shy to hide what it is, which was reflected on the revenues of the film with almost 4 million pounds in 2 weeks placed third of 4 films released.