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| Divines -Violence begets violence and nothing ends well in this excellent movie. |
Excludes France
Written by: Houda Benyamina (adaptation, dialogue, screenplay), Romain Compingt (adaptation, dialogue, screenplay), Malik Rumeau (screenplay)
Directed by: Houda Benyamina
Starring: Oulaya Amamra, Deborah Lukumuena, Kevin Mischel
Rated: TV-MA/R
Plot
Set in the French suburbs, a teenager and her best friend descend into a life of crime and money when they begin working for a female drug boss.
Verdict
This love of money ruins everything. Dounia is a disenfranchised teen that just wants to escape poverty. She starts dealing drugs and finally has more money than she has ever needed, but it doesn't solve her problems. You don't just see it, you feel it. You get why she succumbs to that life, and you know it can't end well. By that time it's too late to turn back.
Watch it.
Review
This isn't just a good Netflix original movie, it's a really good movie. It manages to capture emotions without being manipulative while still feeling very real. We know Dounia (Oulaya Amamra) and where she comes from. She wants to escape the poverty and her slum at any cost because she's been powerless her entire life. She sees Rebecca, a drug boss, and sees a female with money and power. Rebecca has everything Dounia wants.
Dounia is the class clown, a disenfranchised teen that always convinces her best friend Maimouna to skip school with her. Dounia doesn't want to go to school and learn how to be a receptionist. Dounia criticizes her teacher, mocking her and her life. Dounia wants "money, money, money."
Dounia manages to impress drug boss Rebecca and secure a job. Rebecca's associates don't understand why she would hire someone from the slums. The movie never explains why, but Rebecca got to where she is by being smart. She sees how desperate Dounia is to escape her life. That makes her loyal. She sees someone she can use to her advantage. It's not a protege, it's all about the money. Rebecca is a predator toying with prey.
Dounia finds success dealing and gets her own territory. In a neat scene she imagines being rich, driving a Ferrari. The camera glides smoothly putting us into her imagination as she drives this car, even adding sound effects. Dounia's a dealer, but she's still a kid. She doesn't understand the harsh repercussions of this life. She doesn't plan ahead. She's reactive. She saw a way out of the slums, but didn't even consider the ramifications.
Between the story, directing, and acting, this has a lot of heart. You want Dounia to escape the life, but you know something bad is lurking around the corner. Combine that with Dounia's short sighted thinking and a tragic ending seems inevitable.
There is a subplot with a male dancer love interest. Dounia often sits on the mezzanine at the local theater and watches dance rehearsals to pass the time. While her attraction to a certain dancer builds up well, it felt at first like another aspect of life that was out of her reach, until he falls for her. It felt too mechanical. It was plot convenience. This was the one part of the movie that didn't feel authentic. While it contributes to the overall narrative, one more quick scene could have made this work better.
Dounia had encountered the dancer a couple of times at his day job as a security officer. Just a gaze or a look in one of these scenes could have helped. He doesn't seem interested in her at all until the plot demands it.
Rebecca seems like a friend, but she is not. In one scene she pulls a gun on Dounia, later telling her it was just a test. Dounia passed, but it's telling that Dounia was willing to risk her life in that situation for Maimouna.
Dounia decides to rip off Rebecca and Rebecca's former supplier by stealing a large sum of cash because she's mad at one of Rebecca's lieutenants. It's an act of defiance. She doesn't need the money, she just wants revenge. She infiltrates the supplier's house by getting his attention at a club and going back home with him.
It's a tense sequence as you wonder what she'll have to do before she gets a chance to look for the cash, and whether she'll be caught if she finds it. What will he do if he catches her?
As Shakespeare says in Romeo and Juliet, "violent delights have violent ends." Everything comes full circle. Dounia thinks she can just skip town, but is lured back. We've seen her lack of planning, she didn't think Rebecca would go after Maimouna, she never considered it. The firefighters won't help her because of an earlier event where she started a riot against them. The firefighters tell her they can't go in until the cops show up. It's policy.
Everything she was trying to escape ended up being her downfall. Every decision she made led to the end of this movie. Each scene builds to the conclusion perfectly. She never thought past herself. It's an ending not dissimilar in theme to Scarface (1983), the downfall and goals are intertwined. One brings the other. It's inevitable. You can have it all, just not for long.
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