Reviewed on 29th January at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival – World Cinema Dramatic Competition. 93 Mins
Cast: Ebada Hassan, Safiyya Ingar, Yusra Warsama
Genre: Drama
Director: Nadia Fall
In Irish Cinemas: 26th September 2025
A Claustrophobic Freedom: Teenage Rebellion and Risk in Brides
Nadia Fall’s debut feature, Brides, is a volatile cocktail of youthful exhilaration and looming dread — a coming-of-age tale refracted through the prism of headlines about ISIS “brides.” The film follows two teenage girls who, desperate to flee suffocating lives in a bleak English town, embark on a reckless journey that spirals far beyond the realm of ordinary adolescent mischief.
For most teenagers, mistakes are rites of passage: ill-advised parties, regrettable haircuts, or minor scars that harden into stories. But for Doe and Muna, both 15, the margin for error is perilously thin. When they go astray, it’s not a stumble but a freefall, a choice with consequences that could destroy them. Loosely echoing the infamous story of Shamima Begum, Fall’s film resists the easy sensationalism of ripped-from-the-headlines drama. Instead, it explores the complex, intoxicating bond between two girls who view escape not as a danger, but as liberation.
Suhayla El-Bushra’s screenplay avoids buzzwords like “ISIS” or overt explanations of radicalisation. Rather than focusing on policy or politics, the film is about perspective: two friends barreling toward what they believe is freedom, even as we, the audience, recognise the trap that lies ahead. Fall’s reputation as a celebrated playwright and artistic director of London’s Young Vic lends the film extra attention. Still, Brides ultimately stakes its claim as an intimate study of friendship in its raw, knotty complexity.
The setting is 2014. Britain is simmering with Islamophobia, and the Brexit referendum looms on the horizon. Doe (newcomer Ebada Hassan), a Somali immigrant who arrived as a toddler, carries herself with quiet religiosity, a counterpoint to her mother’s more secular lifestyle. Muna (Safiyya Ingar), bold and sharp-tongued, was born in the U.K. to Pakistani parents, but still feels branded as an outsider. Both girls are alienated at home as well: Doe endures her mother’s abusive boyfriend, while Muna contends with a violent, domineering brother. Flashbacks drip these backstories into the narrative without slowing its forward momentum, grounding their headlong dash in lived trauma.
We first meet them on a train, bubbling with the thrill of escape, en route to London and then Istanbul. At first glance, it could be a cheeky teenage getaway. But details soon sour the picture: a stranger waiting to meet them who never shows, Doe’s phone silenced under Muna’s strict orders, and an itinerary that points not to adventure but to peril. Stranded in Istanbul, the girls decide to press on toward the Syrian border — their naïve determination colliding with a world they scarcely understand.
The film morphs into an episodic road story, marked by lost passports, brushes with the police, and near misses that veer between comic and terrifying. Its emotional anchor lies in the chemistry between Hassan and Ingar. Hassan plays Doe with fragile restraint, her silence speaking volumes, while Ingar’s performance radiates charisma and volatility, pulling both friend and audience into her gravitational orbit. The Turkish setting, captured with restless vibrancy, amplifies the sense of both possibility and menace. If Fall occasionally leans too hard on obvious choices — a blaring M.I.A. track spelling out rebellion — the film’s pulse comes from the authenticity of its central relationship.
Muna’s motives remain intriguingly opaque. For Doe, faith provides a framework; for Muna, friendship itself is the creed. Her devotion to Doe is so complete that it blurs into reckless abandon; her loyalty transforms into a dangerous form of belief. One of the film’s most moving moments arrives late, in a flashback to the pair’s first meeting — a minor, tender accident of teenage fate that set them on a path both exhilarating and catastrophic.
At 93 taut minutes, Brides never overstays its welcome. What lingers isn’t just the danger of where Doe and Muna are headed, but the poignancy of watching two girls seize the illusion of freedom with everything they have, even if it means stepping unthinkingly into the abyss.
Overall: 6.5/10
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