Common Sense Media Review
By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Dad's mental illness breaks up the family; language.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 13+?
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Basma
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
The title character BASMA (played by Fatima AlBanawi, who also wrote and directed), was a Saudi engineering student earning her PhD. in the U.S. when the pandemic hit. Now she is returning home for the first time in two years and finds her parents have divorced, owing to her father's intractable mental illness. Basma immediately, inexplicably blames the put-upon mom for keeping it secret and for breaking off after so many years with her impulsive, paranoid, angry, and unpredictable husband. Basma seems to believe she's the only one who understands how unfair everyone has been to her dad. Then she moves in with him and sees he's covered the windows with newspapers to keep out the prying eyes of all the "narcissistic snakes" who are out to get him. He's also busy covering the A/C vents with paper towels to prevent dangerous microbes from attacking. She learns that he's delusional, explosive, and dangerous and that the family has actually treated him well and tried to help him. How will she cope?
Is It Any Good?
Basma is well-meaning but ultimately a disappointment. Many of the situations presented here feel real, as if these difficulties are exactly what some devoted daughter went through when trying to help her ailing dad, but as with many true stories, it lacks the artful rearrangement necessary to turn those facts into an involving story that has the kind of beginning, middle, and end that brings us somewhere transformative at the conclusion. This just goes nowhere. Every seemingly "important" conversation tells us nothing new, just as every promising development tells us nothing we can't already see, including that Basma has been dead wrong about everything. Her dad's diagnosis is never shared with us, but he does mention that a tree is watching him and that his brother is "a bacteria."
Most disappointing is the amount of humorless twaddle offered as if it was a profundity. "There is no standard normal. Normal is subjective. There are seven billion versions of normal on this planet," is a quote from mental health author Matt Haig. But this is nonsense and simply not true. Is being a murderer normal? We are also told, as if it were news: "It's better to do something you love than to do something you're forced to do. " What can one say to that but "duh"?
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the difficulty adult children experience when their parents divorce. Do you think kids of any age have trouble seeing their parents as adults with independent lives? Why or why not?
How do you think you would handle the mental illness of a loved one?
Sometimes when people experience mental illness, part of the illness includes an inability to recognize the need for treatment. How would you handle it?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : June 6, 2024
- Cast : Fatima AlBanawi , Abdullah Alturki
- Director : Fatima AlBanawi
- Inclusion Information : Female Movie Actor(s)
- Studio : Netflix
- Genre : Drama
- Run time : 105 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- Last updated : June 14, 2024
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