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Turkey, France, Germany · 2015
Rated PG-13 · 1h 37m
Director Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Starring Güneş Nezihe Şensoy, Doğa Zeynep Doğuşlu, Elit İşcan, Tuğba Sunguroğlu
Genre Drama
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After innocently playing with boys, Lale and her four sisters are accused of indecency. To avoid bringing more "shame" to the family, the girls' guardians confine them in their own home, and begin arranging their marriages. But Lale, determined to fight for her siblings' freedom, has other plans.
The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney
The story's quiet power comes from its sensitive observation of the characters as normal, emancipated young modern women, with healthy desires and curiosities, whose supposed transgressions are imagined and then magnified in the judgmental minds of others.
Slant Magazine by James Lattimer
The film punctuates the sisters' confinement with various episodes united by their contrivance.
the director proves especially skilled with her cast of newcomers (of the thesps playing the sisters, only young Iscan, from “My Only Sunshine,” is a veteran), whose powerful individualism as well as their vibrant bond together are perfect vessels for the script’s message.
The exuberant life and liveliness that spills off the screen and the effortless sororal chemistry between these young actresses are compelling reasons to seek out Mustang.
Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern
This sneaky shocker of a debut feature —sneaky because it’s so good at depicting the sisters’ joyousness before, and even after, darkness descends — was directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven from a script she wrote with Alice Winocour.
The Guardian by Jordan Hoffman
While the subject matter is enraging, the film is not without warmth and occasional levity.
Entertainment Weekly by Leah Greenblatt
It’s not hard to see why Mustang has been dubbed the “Turkish Virgin Suicides.” Like Sofia Coppola’s dreamy, unsettling 1999 debut, it’s another first film by a young female director that focuses in feverish close-up on the adolescent awakening of five restless, radiant sisters — and the ruin that follows when their family tries to contain it.
The A.V. Club by Mike D'Angelo
The result, while less poetic and artful than Eugenides’ book or Coppola’s film, is much more emotionally direct, and pulls off a very tricky balancing act between bemoaning its characters’ fate and celebrating their resilience.
The New York Times by Nicolas Rapold
The ensemble of young actresses is a constantly restless and real presence, the perspective filtered mostly through the cheeky Lale but also through the group as a loving crew.
Screen International by Tim Grierson
What begins as a playful look at five young women’s rebellion against their strict upbringing soon becomes something far more stirring and emotional.
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One of the most realistic and magical depictions of sisterhood I've seen in film. The tension between the adolescent awakening of the sisters and their family's forceful containment of it is impossible to look away from.
This is a quietly beautiful coming-of-age film that is so much more than just a Turkish "The Virgin Suicides." I actually identified far more with Lale and her sisters than with Coppola's Lisbon sisters, even though they belonged to a distinctly foreign culture. The chemistry between them felt so genuine and natural, making their confinement that much more heart wrenching.