| IFC Films | Release Date: March 4, 2022 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
11
Mixed:
8
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Feb 28, 2022
It goes without saying that, like most of Abu-Assad’s films, especially Paradise Now(2005) and Omar(2014), Huda’s Salon is rubbed raw by the politics of the occupied territories; but somehow it doesn’t feel like an issue movie. When Huda is onscreen, played with sublime command by Awad, the story becomes unremittingly about her.
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Mar 4, 2022
Working with cinematographers Ehab Assal and Peter Flinckenberg, Abu-Assad continually boxes his female leads into tight corners, visually and dramatically. Nearly every scene takes the form of a single unbroken shot, a technique that sometimes pulls you in and sometimes merely calls attention to its own virtuosity.
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Mar 4, 2022
The story is based on real events, which should make it even more gripping, but Abu-Assad and cinematographers Ehab Assal and Peter Flinckenberg draw the rope so tightly around the leads that the suffocating atmosphere reads almost like a filmed play. Fortunately, Abu-Assad does have two excellent collaborators in Awad and Elhadi.
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Mar 4, 2022
On the whole, Abu-Assad is less successful in braiding the respective tales of Reem and Huda through Eyas Salman’s editing. But eventually the seams show and clumsy jumps between the two locations feel strangely episodic, losing Huda’s Salon some of the urgency it has claimed in its earlier moments.
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Mar 2, 2022
When morals and ethics become muddled, when right becomes indistinguishable from wrong, when there is nowhere to run, and the world closes in on you, what options do you have left? Though Abu-Assad’s equally muddled Huda’s Salon poses more questions than answers, they are compelling enough to warrant a recommendation.
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Mar 2, 2022
Huda’s Salon uses strong thread to sew its dual narratives together, but “together” is all they are. They don’t cohere or complement each other save for providing two distinct paths into Abu-Assad’s exploration of Palestinian identity and life, contextualized in women’s experiences as members of a patriarchal society.
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Mar 2, 2022
Either one of these dual narratives might have worked reasonably well on its own, even if Reem’s situation—complete innocent seeks to escape grave danger—is inherently more gripping than Huda’s. Leaping back and forth between them undermines the former’s urgency while underlining the latter’s single-spare-room theatricality.
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