Four Daughters | Telescope Film
Four Daughters

Four Daughters (Les filles d'Olfa)

Critic Rating

(read reviews)

User Rating

  • France,
  • Saudi Arabia,
  • Germany,
  • Tunisia
  • 2023
  • · 107m

Director Kaouther Ben Hania
Cast Hend Sabry
Genre Documentary, Drama

In this docufiction, director Kaouther Ben Hania recreates the story of a mother and her four daughters, two of whom have disappeared. As she investigates their disappearance, Ben Hania shines a light on what it means to grow up female and how experience is passed down through generations.

Stream Four Daughters

US availabilities powered by JustWatch

What are users saying?

Antoine Corbani

An unforgettable experience. I saw this for the first time on a flight to London, and was itching to rewatch it as soon as it ended. In my opinion, never has a documentary, besides perhaps Errol Morris' Gates of Heaven, been so full of that magical substance which makes us human. “Four Daughters” constitutes a unique social experiment and monumental cinematic experience, where a Tunisian woman named Olfa hires two actresses to play her daughters following their sudden disappearance. We watch closely as Olfa and her two remaining daughters revisit painful memories and learn to find love amidst a pool of darkness. A riveting work of art that explores our ability to understand tragedy and our confrontations with evil and suffering in their rawest forms, and a testament to the strength of the human spirit and the beauty of sisterhood. A must-watch.

What are critics saying?

100

San Francisco Chronicle by G. Allen Johnson

It is full of joy and laughter, as well as tears. It is about many things, among them sisterhood, the difficulties of parenting, processing trauma in a patriarchal society, and religious extremism. But most of all, it’s filled with life, and all the triumphs and pleasure, pain and disappointments that go with it.

100

Washington Post by Amy Nicholson

Four Daughters is film as family therapy and family therapy as film.

90

The Hollywood Reporter by Lovia Gyarkye

Rarely does Ben Hania’s film feel exploitative or manipulative. In fact, more than anything, Four Daughters is radical in its honesty and courage.

90

Screen Daily by Wendy Ide

It’s frequently an uncomfortable watch and, at points, prompts prickly ethical questions about the potential for the re-traumatisation of documentary subjects. But, perhaps more unexpectedly, this bold and confrontational film is also joyous, playful and in some ways even empowering.

90

Los Angeles Times by Justin Chang

This is a heartbreaker about mothers and daughters, the cruelty of repression and the slippery but revealing nature of performance. And to the end, it remains steadfast in its conviction that a woman’s truth and her beauty are never at odds.

90

Collider by Aidan Kelley

The result is a bold and sensational documentary that seamlessly blends reality and adaptation, successfully crafting a story of grief and trauma that is as profound as it is heartbreaking.

88

RogerEbert.com by Peyton Robinson

As Olfa and the sisters give perspective on their shared trauma and heartbreak and discuss the underlying principles of it with each other and the actresses, what ensues is not simply the story of a family but a tour de force examination of women’s place in the world and the costs of how they choose to cope with it.

88

LarsenOnFilm by Josh Larsen

The more avant-garde this becomes, the more interesting—aesthetically and thematically—Four Daughters is.

88

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Barry Hertz

As unflinching as it is empathetic, Four Daughters is the best and slipperiest kind of film, whether you want to label it a documentary or not.

83

Original-Cin by Liz Braun

Four Daughters is a strange, moving, weirdly stagey film, heartbreaking in most aspects but infuriating in others.