Review of Inshallah A Boy / إن شاء الله ولد, directed by Amjad Al Rasheed

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

When it comes to blogging, or even watching movies and whatnot, I’ve been in such a weird headspace lately. I started a new job after quite a bit of a spell of not having any besides freelance and contract work, and now that I am actually working, I’m not watching as much as I used.

Part of it is fueled by my newfound YouTube addiction, but part of it just is that I can’t stay awake long enough to get everything I want done. I haven’t even been going to the movies lately to see them in-person because I simply am just tired after I get everything else done.

Call this a regular phase of corporate America and adulting, but I want to find a balance and go back more to the things I love. Sometimes life is simply trying to find a balance between the things that keep you alive, providing food, shelter, and warmth, and the things that you actually want to spend your life enjoying.

Watching a movie on Kanopy every other night has been a habit I’m trying to cultivate, and today’s blog post actually comes from that newfound hobby. I get so many good movies for free through Kanopy, which is provided through my local library system. I hope one day that if I have enough money I can donate to them—I have received so much through my library.

It was on there I saw Inshallah A Boy and thought it seemed right up my alley. I’ve been trying to learn more about the various Arab cultures and want to plan a trip to Jordan and Oman, so when I saw this movie was set in Jordan and focused on a woman trying to survive there, I knew I wanted to watch it. So I did!

Let’s get into the review. I don’t want this introduction to get too long.

A recently widowed woman with a daughter fakes a pregnancy in order to keep her husband’s assets.

At the beginning of this movie, we meet Nawal, her husband, and their daughter. They live a modest live in Jordan, but when her husband unexpectedly dies one day, Nawal is faced with the reality of being a widowed woman living in the country. Not only does she have to deal with mice and critters on her own, with her daughter watching her, a new problem has appeared

The inheritance laws in Jordan don’t favor the widows when their husbands die. So when her husband passed away, all of his assets, including the place they live in, Nawal is about to lose everything. Unless she has a son she is unable to claim anything he owned, and his family comes knocking at the door to take everything away.

As she goes to her job of serving as a nurse for a wealthier family, where she sees the younger rich woman in the family wallow in her unhappiness and pregnancy, Nawal gets an idea. What if she just faked being pregnant? That would delay the potential inevitable result of losing everything they own.

So with the help of her wealthy client’s pregnant daughter, Nawal kicks into overdrive with her new plan. People aren’t going to believe that she’s pregnant, so she has to keep up the pretense until it’s time for her to actually give in to the ruse or actually get pregnant in a different way.

All of this is happening while she's trying to continue raising her daughter as well. I found this to be quite striking because we rarely hear the real perspectives of Arab women in the United States. I understand this deeply as an Iranian American woman and know that the constructs of what our stories are often shaped for us in these cultures, so when I watch movies like this, I feel seen.

It’s something striking when we get an authentic (air quotes because who gets to decide what’s authentic sometimes) voice from a Middle Eastern woman. I like to see these kinds of movies and perspectives in broader film discussions, even though I feel like this movie is something that hasn’t entered though discussions.

Overall Thoughts

I’ve always touched on my thoughts a little bit already, but I did genuinely enjoy watching this movie. It’s a fairly simple plot but the way these characters make the story come alive is something that stands out to me. I kept using the word striking before, which is an honest reaction from me.

I don’t know if I would rewatch this movie, but it certainly left quite an impression on me. I want to watch more of these movies in the near future, if time allows me to watch more films. I can’t sacrifice my sleep in order to keep watching movies and television shows. I nod off at work sometimes.

I say go watch this film if you haven’t had the chance and want to. I think it’s quite a delightful movie.

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