It’s clear that the protagonist has changed a lot - and not only physically, as he’s now played by Karim Ait M’hand - and not for the better, and audiences are required to fill in the gaps quickly to make sense of this last section, something that might be a stretch for those unfamiliar with the source material. In Switzerland, Abdellah is homeless and finally finds shelter at a building of the titular Salvation Army, and it takes a while for viewers to figure out why he’s without a roof over his head and how what’s happening connects to the material that has come before. But a sequence in which Slimane, Mustapha and Abdellah go to the seaside together - where his older brother explains to him the importance of French, the language of the rich people - and the film’s last half-hour, set in rainy, Francophone Geneva 10 years later, throw everything that has come before into a different light. Though a writer by trade, Taia manages to convey most of this in looks and hushed tones, and roughly the first half of the 80-minute film could work well as a standalone item. Very quiet by nature, Abdellah assimilates all of this and obsesses over the single male role model in his family: Slimane, though his burgeoning sexuality - he occasionally has sex with older local men at an abandoned construction site, something that seems refreshingly normal and natural for him - make his feelings for Slimane very confused. His mother, gaggle of smaller sisters and his kid brother, Mustapha, form a single closed unit, while 15-year-old Abdellah finds himself lost in the middle, neither a man nor a child anymore.įurther complicating the relationship with his father is the fact his old man occasionally beats his mother, forcing him to choose sides. Teenager Abdellah ( Said Mrini) is a quiet kid raised in a lower-class, big and boisterous family in which his father and his older brother, Slimane ( Amine Ennaji), are the only two men he can look up to.

The film, which premieres at Venice and Toronto, should also appeal to other festivals, while the fact that all sex scenes rigorously take place offscreen suggests Taia might be hoping it’ll be released in Morocco, as well. Josh O'Connor on Why His Role in 'La Chimera' Is 'Much More Me' Than Prince Charles Is in 'The Crown'įrancophone territories are the likeliest takers for theatrical rights, with a French release tentatively scheduled for January, 2014 through Rezo.

Salvation army abdellah taia