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Hala

Hala

2019

Minhal Baig

Geraldine Viswanathan, Jack Kilmer, Gabriel Luna, Purbi Joshi ...

5.8

296

Drama. Romance Hala is her father’s pride and joy. Dutiful and academically gifted, she skillfully navigates both her social life as a teen in Chicago and her obligations as an only child to Pakistani immigrants. With high-school graduation looming, however, Hala is bursting with sexual desire. When she meets Jesse, a classmate who shares her love for poetry and skateboarding, their romance is complicated by her Muslim faith and a father who is ... [+]

	Media	Author	Review
		Amy Nicholson Variety	"'Hala' leans back and enjoys its lead’s natural charisma. Viswanathan can do gross-out humor and slapstick, but here she proves her range"
		Beandrea July The Hollywood Reporter	"The touches that endear us to Hala during the first half of the film are almost nonexistent in its second half, adding up to a choppy, incoherent finish."
		David Ehrlich IndieWire	"Viswanathan delivers an outstanding lead performance (...) The most resonant aspect of Baig’s film is the relationship between Hala and her parents"
		Matt Goldberg Collider	"[It] feels at least several drafts away from fully realizing its potential (...) Baig’s movie always keeps us at a distance, refusing to give us unpredictability or characters that seem believable."
		Jason Bailey The Playlist	"A universal story (...) Baig’s script has the kind of intimacy that is too often passed over in favor of melodrama or cynicism (...) 'Hala' is keenly observed and quietly powerful"
		Jeannette Catsoulis The New York Times	"[Hala is] a Pakistani-American teenager (...) Floating in a limbo between two cultures (...) Effortlessly conveying this bifurcation (...) Viswanathan is, quite simply, sublime"
		Dan Mecca The Film Stage	"Aided by a beautiful score from Mandy Hoffman, the narrative goes where expected while never feeling tired or overly familiar (...) One sincerely hopes that this is the first of many collaborations between Viswanathan and Baig"
		Nick Allen rogerebert.com	"While told with delicacy that can sometimes feel too loose, 'Hala' is able to articulate much its inner conflict with an exceptional and largely contemplative performance from Geraldine Viswanathan"
		David Fear Rolling Stone	"What makes 'Hala' feel like a cut above other I Guess This Is Growing Up 101 movies, however, are the two women at the center of it [Baig and Viswanathan] (…) Rating: ★★★½ (out of 5)"

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