Wadjda
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: September 13, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
81
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
25
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesBruce IngramSep 19, 2013
Al-Mansour has managed to embue Wadjda with a hopeful spirit, partially because she takes time to show women finding ways to be themselves in private moments. And partially because she suggests with a few subtle touches that the situation might be slowly improving. Read full review
100
The PlaylistOliver LytteltonAug 23, 2013
One of the best films of the year. Read full review
90
VarietyJay WeissbergDec 15, 2013
With enormous sympathy for all, Al Mansour captures the isolation of Saudi women and their parallel lives of freedom at home and invisibility outside. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaOct 9, 2013
The movie’s best moments are the small ones. Read full review
90
SlateDana StevensSep 15, 2013
It’s a stunningly assured debut, a slyly subversive delight, and one of my favorite movies of the year so far. Read full review
90
The DissolveAndrew LapinSep 12, 2013
Wadjda is an object of stark beauty, an oasis of free-spirited cinema emerging from the desert. Read full review
90
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlSep 10, 2013
A simple, solid, deeply affecting film. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaOct 3, 2013
Wadjda is a movie about freedom - and nothing represents freedom with the metaphoric simplicity and symmetry of a bicycle. Read full review
88
Boston GlobePeter KeoughOct 3, 2013
The world of cinema is richer for the voice of Al Mansour; she speaks for the women of her country, and for people everywhere. Read full review
88
New York PostFarran Smith NehmeSep 30, 2013
What makes the movie so delightful is that Wadjda isn’t trying to make trouble; she’s just being herself. A shot of the system of wire hangers attached to her radio so she can pick up Western music stations sums up her can-do attitude. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia PuigSep 12, 2013
Not only is this a deftly crafted and superbly acted film, but Wadjda sheds a powerful light on what women face, starting in childhood, in an oppressive regime. Read full review
85
NPRMark JenkinsSep 13, 2013
Wadjda offers an interesting contrast to films made in Iran. Where the latter country has a long cinematic tradition, Mansour's is the first feature shot entirely in Saudi Arabia. Read full review
83
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallOct 24, 2013
The easiest way for filmmakers to show injustice in the world is through the eyes of a child. In the case of Haifaa al-Mansour's movie, the injustice is Saudi Arabia's male-centric culture, and the child is a preteen girl named Wadjda. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneSep 16, 2013
Al Mansour is too smart to overdo the symbolic spin, but the thrust of her film, toward the end, could hardly be more urgent. [16 Sept. 2013, p. 72]
80
The New York TimesA.O. ScottSep 12, 2013
With impressive agility, Wadjda finds room to maneuver between harsh realism and a more hopeful kind of storytelling. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJordan HoffmanSep 12, 2013
This resonant film, detailing struggles in a far-flung place, represents world cinema in the classic sense. Read full review
80
Time OutKeith UhlichSep 10, 2013
An Arabic-German coproduction, it is a rare movie shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, which has no cinema industry to speak of, and the first feature by a female filmmaker from that country. Forbidden from mixing with the men in her crew, Al-Mansour often directed via walkie-talkie from the back of a van. Read full review
80
Total FilmKevin HarleyAug 20, 2013
Al-Mansour carefully dodges easy uplift, but her message of hope to future generations of Saudi women is clear. Read full review
80
EmpireDavid ParkinsonAug 20, 2013
As simple and charming as you could wish for, this is a genuinely pioneering debut from a female Saudi filmmaker and a striking piece of work by any standards. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinAug 20, 2013
Modest as it may look, this is boundary-pushing cinema in all the best ways, and what a thrill it is to hear those boundaries creak. Read full review
80
The GuardianXan BrooksAug 20, 2013
You'd need a heart of stone not to be won over by Wadjda, a rebel yell with a spoonful of sugar and a pungent sense of a Riyadh society split between the home, the madrasa and the shopping mall. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenOct 16, 2013
If Wadjda, this Muslim girl, calls up film memories of adolescent Marjane Satrapi in "Persepolis", whose Western-loving lifestyle is uprooted by Iran’s Islamic Revolution, or the young women in Jafar Panahi’s "Offside," who countermand the rules that forbid them from entering stadiums to watch men’s soccer matches, you wouldn’t be far off the mark. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoSep 19, 2013
A simple story told with economy, Wadjda is a notable example of old-school, humanistic filmmaking. It's also genuinely groundbreaking: the first feature shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, and the first film directed by a Saudi woman. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 19, 2013
In the scenes between mother and daughter in their apartment, the world outside no longer judging every action, new worlds open up. And therein lies the cinema's role in our lives: It reveals what is concealed to others. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranSep 12, 2013
While the uniqueness of the film's Riyadh setting and the disturbing nature of Wadjda's depictions of life for women behind the Saudi curtain are thoroughly involving, the actual plotline of a 10-year-old girl's determination to own a bicycle can be as standard as it sounds. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineR. Kurt OsenlundSep 10, 2013
It doesn't play like reality, but like boilerplate filmic fantasy, and its novel setting and inception struggles seem positioned as a beard--or veil, if you will--to mask its mediocrity. Read full review
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