70
This debut feature earns its grown-up wisdom without selling out its youthful idealism.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
The Hollywood Reporter by Boyd van Hoeij
Though only an adequate singer, Medhaffer practically explodes with energy when she’s behind the microphone, making for a very charismatic performer.
75
Leyla Bouzid successfully dramatizes how young people eroticize peril and risk due to a lack of experience.
80
Screen International by Dan Fainaru
Leyla Bouzid’s fiercely committed debut should draw plenty of attention not only for the way it deals with the political climate in her homeland but also for how she charts the painful transition of her lead character from outspoken, rebellious adolescence to a more careful and often resigned adulthood.
63
RogerEbert.com by Godfrey Cheshire
Curiously, there’s virtually no mention of religion in the film. For that matter, politics creep into the tale only obliquely, and later. It appears we’re meant to understand that the band’s music and Farah’s lyrics have an edge of protest, but this is registered only as a very general sort of frustration and discontent.
80
Sharply yet subtly capturing the atmosphere of fear fostered by the dictatorship of President Ben Ali, this skillfully made drama is especially attuned to the myriad forms of surveillance, from the prurient to the political.
80
By using the tropes of the coming-of-ager - a rebellious teen and the strained relationship with her mother - as the central touchstone, Bouzid subtly, yet efficiently paints the nascent days of Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution as a force to be reckoned with.
70
Los Angeles Times by Sheri Linden
Baya Medhaffar inhabits the role of Farah with a blazing exuberance that’s matched by a dynamic sense of place. Director Leyla Bouzid may struggle to shape her narrative in the final reels, but through most of its running time her first feature pulses with in-the-moment vitality.
80
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
As I Open My Eyes is best when it observes the fraught but loving mother-daughter relationship between Hayet and Farah.