S.W.’s Scores
Continuity
+5
Entertainment
+4
Rewatchability
+2
CastBaneen Ahmad Nayyef, Sajad Mohamad Qasem, Waheed Thabet Khreibat
StreamingTheatrical
S.W.’s Verdict
A nine-year-old girl in 1990 Iraq has to bake a cake for Saddam Hussein's birthday. She can't afford flour. That's the whole premise, and it's enough to build one of the year's most devastating films. Shot in Iraq with mostly untrained actors, which gives it a texture that professional productions can't replicate. Hadi knows this world firsthand and it shows in every frame — the fear is ambient, never theatrical. The child's perspective keeps the politics human-scaled. First Iraqi film in Cannes Directors' Fortnight. Won the section. Earned it.