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United States, France, Egypt · 2022
1h 30m
Director Dina Amer
Starring Lorenza Grimaudo, Ilona Grimaudo, Mouna Soualem, Sabrina Ouazani
Genre Drama
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When the bond is broken between two sisters, a little girl transforms into someone new in the name of belonging and resistance.
You Resemble Me starts as a coming-of-age story and mutates into the permanent falling apart of a woman invisible to society. Then, it redefines itself again as a documentary reckoning...It’s a brilliant turn that showcases the first-time filmmaker’s investigative background with bite.
RogerEbert.com by Christy Lemire
You Resemble Me is at its strongest when it tries to humanize its misunderstood central figure in simple, intimate ways.
Amer’s fraught but noble intent has resulted in a fraught but noble film; a volatile, urgent debut that’s semi-effective kaleidoscopic approach is meant to reflect Hasna Aït Boulahcen’s fractured identity.
The New York Times by Devika Girish
The film needs more facts and fewer flourishes, but its closing turn to documentary footage, comprising brief snippets of interviews with Hasna’s family, is too little, too late.
You Resemble Me is a challenging film that tests the limits of empathy, but one whose lessons are ignored at our own peril.
It’s a strange film, one that feels its way through Hasna’s story, changing tack, trying out different methods – including the casting of three different women as the adult Hasna, one of them the director herself, and a final shift into documentary.
The Hollywood Reporter by Lovia Gyarkye
Despite its uneven patches, this absorbing experimental film (which includes documentary elements toward the end) seemingly conjures the voice of its deceased subject to tell a gripping and painful story of dislocation and belonging.
It has a scrappy, throat-grabbing energy and a sincerity that never feels hectoring.
The directing debut of co-writer and star Dina Amer is a vivid portrait of the French underclass and one of the best movies to ever make us walk a mile in the shoes of someone we might not be able to identify with — someone radicalized — but who seems more relatable and understandable, the more time we spend with her.
The Film Stage by Rory O'Connor
The worlds of contemporary geopolitics and narrative independent filmmaking collide in You Resemble Me, a movie that shape-shifts from a first act coming-of-age tale into something searing and provocative, and ripped straight from the headlines.