Parky at the Pictures (DVD 5/7/2018)

Bereft after his painter wife of 33 years dies 61 days after being diagnosed with cancer, JK Simmons wakes teenage son Josh Wiggins in the middle of the night and informs him that he can no longer bear living in the family home in San Francisco and has accepted a maths teaching post at the Los Angeles school run by his old college friend, Kevin Dunn. Loading everything into a U-Haul, the pair settle into a rented house and Simmons gives Wiggins his car, as he plans to cycle to work. But, while Simmons quickly gets used to the idea of teaching at a private boys' school, Wiggins struggles to cope with the demands of cross-country running and the teasing of bully Charlie DePew, who not only despises Wiggins's new friends, Tyrel Jackson Williams and Jae Head, but also hits on the girls from the nearby Cavalcade Academy who come to the campus for extra tuition. 

One of the shared subjects is French and tutor Julie Delpy soon realises that Wiggins is sufficiently fluent to offer struggling classmate Odeya Rush some much-needed assistance. Similarly, Dunn suggests that Simmons would benefit from seeing psychiatrist Harold Perrineau and he recommends medication that will help bring Simmons out of his crushing sense of despondency. However, he spends his evenings gazing at his wife's best painting, while Wiggins watches videos of her (Kimberly Crandall) on his phone and Rush cuts herself with a razor blade to ease strain of living with demanding parents Jean Louisa Kelly and Tom Amandes. 

Even Delpy has problems, as coach Michael McGlone keeps flirting with her and she forges an alliance of convenience with Simmons to keep him at arm's length. However, she tries to befriend Rush, who suspects that her kindness is due to the fact that Wiggins had seen a bloodstain on her blouse. He swears that he had kept his word to tell no one and gets teased by Rush's younger sister, Kitana Turnbull, when she throws him out of her bedroom during a study session. 

Wiggins is confused by Rush, as he has spotted her disappearing into the bushes with DePew at a party. But he gets an insight into her situation when he stays to supper and witnesses Kelly and Amandes bickering. Consequently, when DePew taunts him in the canteen about hanging around with such a pushover, Wiggins belts him over the head with a tray and is threatened with expulsion by Dunn after the fracas gets out of control. 

Meanwhile, Perrineau urges Simmons to find a way of weaning himself off his grief and start living again and a chance comes when Delpy asks him to dinner to give her an excuse for turning down a date with McGlone. They have a nice evening and Simmons and Wiggins have a catch-up chat in the kitchen after he gets home. Wiggins also starts spending more time with Rush, who buys him a passenger seat for his car. However, it turns out to be a driver's seat and he fits it backwards so that Rush and Turnbull can play hand-clapping games together when they go out for a drive. She also comes to watch him do litter patrol as part of his punishment for the fight and even agrees to attend a birthday party that Dunn is throwing for Simmons. 

Delpy is also among the guests and she sides with Rush and Dunn's wife, 
Jacqueline Mazarella, in asserting that men don't like strong women. Mazarella tells a story about Crandall giving a Neanderthal a tough time at a bar and Delpy compliments Simmons on having found such a wonderful partner. They wind up in bed together, while Rush persuades Wiggins to take things slowly after he tries to kiss her while they park beside a lake. But, while he agrees to her suggestion, Simmons feels guilty about betraying the memory of his wife and Perrineau suggests that he needs to forgive himself for surviving and needing to move on. 

Everything seems to be going well. But Rush is so upset by a blazing row between her parents that she goes drinking with DePew and his pals. However, she comes to her senses and calls Delpy to pick her up and she implores her to respect herself. Unfortunately, Wiggins finds out about the tryst and Rush slaps his face when he accuses her of being easy. Shortly afterwards, Simmons admits to Delpy that he is not ready for a relationship and collapses in front of his class and Perrineau tells Dunn that he has suffered a nervous breakdown and will continue to decline unless he breaks the cycle of grief. He suggests trying electro-convulsive therapy and going to group sessions. But Wiggins is growing tired with his father's condition and confides to Dunn that he doesn't think he wants to get well, as he is more concerned with his lost wife than his living son. 

While Simmons endures his therapy, Dunn tells Wiggins that the secret to cross-country running is to find a way of bursting through the pain barrier. Thus, after pleading with Simmons to snap out of it and stop drifting away from him, Wiggins wins a major race while his father goes through Crandall's belongings and gives them all away, apart from a box of personal items with special associations. He arrives in time to give his son an apology and a hug at the finish line before Wiggins goes off to show Rush his medal. She has passed French without his help and is keen to give things another try. As is Delpy with Simmons and the film ends with everyone eating ice-cream while driving in an open-top car along a winding coastal road. 

There are several glitches in the screenplay that prevent this well-meaning picture from getting to the crux of its matter. Why is no mention made of the fact that Simmons and Crandall were together for over three decades and yet only had one 17 year-old son? If Dunn is such a close friend (who even dated Crandall before Simmons stole her heart), how come Wiggins has never heard of him? And if Delpy is so sensitive to Simmons's feelings, why does she strip off in his bedroom after the birthday party when so much of the evening's conversation had revolved around his late wife?

Other niggles involving Rush's relationships with her parents and DePew tip the balance towards further towards tele-melodrama. But the real problem lies with Voelker's reluctance to discuss the trauma of loss in worthwhile depth. Simmons does a fine job of conveying the emptiness he experiences without his irreplaceable soulmate (even though the clips on Wiggins's phone suggest that Crandall was more than charmingly normal than vivaciously exceptional), but his sessions with Perrineau are so flatly written and so devoid of either emotional heft or medical insight that one is left to question the jargon-spouting shrink's haphazard methods. 

Antonio Riestra's photography is equally uninspired, while composer Joel P. West drizzles sentiment over almost every scene. Yet it's impossible not to root for Simmons and Delpy and for Wiggins and Rush, as they commit so wholeheartedly to their roles. So, in spite of the cringingly cosy conclusion and all that cornball symbolism about a passenger seat facing the road that's been travelled rather than the way ahead, this will justify its release if it helps anyone suffering find some solace and inspiration. 

In 1973, Hal Ashby created one of the seminal works of the New Hollywood era in adapting Darryl Ponicsan's novel, The Last Detail. Following sailors Jack Nicholson and Otis Young as they escort thief Randy Quaid from Washington to the brig in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, this freewheeling road movie encapsulated American cinema's sense of post-Production Code freedom in exploring the military mindset and the mood of the nation as the Vietnam War dragged on towards ignominious defeat. Now, Richard Linklater has teamed up with Poniscan to produce Last Flag Flying, a melancholic postscript to the earlier picture that lacks its acerbity and authenticity, as it joins three old comrades in a reunion that struggles to achieve the right balance between sincerity and convolution. 

In the winter of 2003, Steve Carell turns up at the backstreet bar in Norfolk, Virginia run by old service buddy, Bryan Cranston. They haven't seen each other since Carell was slammed in a US Navy prison and dismissed on a bad conduct charge. However, they drink through the night and, the next morning, drive to the Baptist church where old mucker Laurence Fishburne is now the pastor. A former Marine with a tendency to say what he feels, Cranston makes their presence known during a sermon and accepts an invitation to lunch from Fishburne's prim wife, Deanna Reed-Foster. During the meal, it's revealed that Carell has not only just lost his wife to breast cancer, but his 21 year-old son has also been killed in Iraq and he asks Cranston and Fishburne to accompany him to Washington DC to collect the body and attend the planned funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. 

Despite this being an odd request - given that the men had not seen each other for three decades before Carell tracked them down on the Internet -  Cranston and Fishburne agree to stand by the friend they feel they had let down during his moment of crisis in `Nam. Cranston is amused when Fishburne (who walks with a stick) lets his pious façade slip while jousting with a juggernaut on the freeway and he takes delight in reminding him that he was nicknamed `The Mauler' because of his fondness for prostitutes. Fishburne acknowledges that this was a dark period in his life and that he has since reformed. But he still knows his way around a swear word and he is less than amused when they arrive at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware (via a detour to Arlington) and have to spend the night in a motel, where they see on the news that Saddam Hussein has been found in a spider hole.

Arriving in a vast hangar to see a line of flag-draped coffins, Carell is greeted by Lieutenant Colonel Yul Vazquez, who assures him that his son had been a hero who had died in the line of duty. However, as he insists on seeing the body, Lance Corporal J. Quinton Johnson lets slip to Cranston and Fishburne that his buddy had been shot in the back of the head while shopping after a mission to deliver school supplies. Cranston feels that Carell should know the truth and he feels sufficiently betrayed by the government trying to make a hero out of his body that he decides to bury him at home, alongside his mother. Cranston offers to rent a van to take the casket to Portsmouth, but Fishburne insists on taking the bus back to his parish and bids Carell a dignified farewell. 

Driving to the U-Haul depot, Fishburne asks Cranston (who was invalided out of the Corps with a metal plate in his head) whether he feels guilty about his part in the scandal that resulted in Carell being jailed. As a comrade had been left to die in agony because the morphine supply had been depleted, Cranston admits to having regrets. But he feels time is ticking on his life and that he would rather look forward than back. At the van hire, Cranston arouses the suspicions of desk clerk Jane Mowder, who convinces herself that Fishburne is a Muslim cleric and he is detained at the bus station by Homeland Security. Cranston and Carell are pulled over by the cops and the trio wind up back in their motel, with Fishburne furious that he had to call Reed-Foster and explain that he had been arrested. 

The following morning, Yazquez makes another attempt to persuade Carell to bury his son with honours in Arlington. But he insists he will take him to Portsmouth by train and replace his uniform with his graduation suit before laying him beside his mother. Unable to stop him, Yazquez details Johnson to accompany the coffin and ensure that his friend is treated like a Marine and not a daddy's boy. Entrusting the cargo to guard Graham Wolfe, Johnson comes to sit with Carell, Fishburne and Cranston and tries to apologise for not taking his turn to fetch the Cokes on the day of the ambush. But Carell urges him to live without regret, as they discuss his tours of duty and the fact that he is used to sudden death after being raised without a father in Oakand. He reassures Carell that his son had been doing a job he loved and that he only spoke well about his folks. 

Sitting in the baggage car, the veterans tells Johnson about their misadventures in the red light district known as `Disneyland' and Carell gets the giggles when Cranston informs them of the effects of gravity on his ageing genitals. Arriving in New York, they go in search of an Irish bar and buy mobile phones, only to discover that they have missed their train and have to spend the night on the Pennsylvania Station concourse. Over supper at a diner, Cranston reveals that he has looked up the mother of the friend who had died in Vietnam and hints that they should pay her a call out of respect. But Carell suggests they should let sleeping dogs lie, as her son would never have been killed if they had been doing their jobs. Nevertheless, they make the detour, but are so touched by Cicely Tyson's reaction to meeting some of the men her boy saved through his heroism that they don't have the heart to tell her the truth. 

Following a discussion about how Fishburne found God and Reed-Foster, the train reaches its destination and Cranston notes how rundown the town looks now that its factories have closed. While Fishburne takes the spare room and Johnson kips on the couch, Carell gives Cranston the master bed and sleeps on a mattress on the floor. As they chat, Cranston urges Carell to quit his job at the Navy supply store and become his partner in running the bar. He promises to think about it and, the next morning, agrees to bury his boy in his uniform, as he had earned the privilege by stepping up when his country needed him. Cranston and Fishburne also magic up some uniforms to perform the flag ceremony at the graveside and are there when Carell reads a letter from his son, in which he states his pride at being a Marine and requests to be buried in his uniform beside his mom. 

The sympathetic pat on the shoulder from Cranston to Carell as the scene fades sums up the low-key approach that Linklater, cinematographer Shane F. Kelly and composer Graham Reynolds take to this epic journey. But, while Linklater resists cheap sentiment and patriotism, he also struggles to prevent this worthy drama from seeming like a piece of Masterpiece Theatre. Good though they are, the leads always seem to be acting rather than inhabiting their characters. But this is less their fault than that of Linklater and Ponicsan, who have fashioned convenient ciphers to fit a scenario designed to highlight certain issues in modern America.

Paramount are discussions about the difference between brotherhood and esprit de corps and the population's continuing faith in an establishment that persistently dissembles and stage manages in order to prevent ordinary, trusting people from discovering the misdeeds that are being perpetrated in their name. The latter would be a laudable topic were it not presented with a similar degree of didactic calculation that seeks to let folks feel good about themselves, if not the elected representatives who have led them into conflicts they didn't really understand. 

Largely appearing as patronising stereotypes, British Chinese and Asian characters have been even more marginalised. In the latter case, the situation has primarily been redressed by second-generation film-makers, who have mostly concentrated on issues of assimilation, radicalisation and honour killings. Yet, two of the most successful insights into the British-Asian experience were Damien O'Donnell's East Is East (1999) and Sarah Gavron's Brick Lane (2007), while comedies like Josh Appignanesi's The Infidel and Chris Morris's Four Lions (2010) were also directed by non-Asians. 

The theme of racially motivated violence against Asians was tellingly explored by Pratibha Parmar in the 1988 short, Sari Red, and was taken up again in Kenny Glenaan's Yasmin (2004). But, while the likes of Udayan Prasad's My Son the Fanatic (1997) and Sally El-Hosaini's My Brother the Devil (2012) have explored the growing problem of Islamic fundamentalism, nobody has addressed the issue of Islamaphobia in any depth prior to Conor Ibrahiem's debut feature, Freesia. 

Taking its title from a flower recommended by florists for those who exhibit grace under pressure, this noble bid to expose a tinderbox topic was made in just 13 days for £27,000. It succumbs to some inevitable first-timer lapses in the pacing of scenes and the direction of the actors, while the script doesn't always manage to express its more provocative socio-political ideas in a convincingly everyday argot. But this is a picture with its head and its heart in the right place. Moreover, it provides a vital insight into a subject that is as crucial to an understanding of modern Britain as austerity, Brexit, populism and the growing polarisation of politics. 

Teenager Zac (Matthew Thomas) is tired of hearing parents Mark (Chris Madej) and Sally (Samantha Mesagno) bickering. After Mark sells the car, Sally treats him to a tirade about bankers, politicians and foreigners sitting pretty while they struggle because he cant get a job. She makes a throwaway remark about joining the English Defence League, but Zac is already reading right-wing propaganda and he disconcerts local vicar, the Reverend Rushton (Ken Taylor) by asking how Britain can still consider itself a Christian country when most of its churches are empty. Mumbling something about the pen being unable to solve the nation's problems. Zac produces a penknife from his pocket and menacingly follows a young Asian boy home from school. 

At the nearby mosque, committee leader Rehman (Mohammed Rafique) is dealing with the fallout from a grooming scandal and the growing ambitions of Ghalib (Irfan Nazir), who is keen to appoint his nephew, Nazir (Amir Rahimzadeh), as the new Imam. He is also struggling to convince his secular son, Yusuf (Aqib Khan), to continue with his studies in Egypt. Yet, when Yusuf attends a committee meeting with his father, he loses patience with an elderly man complaining about debased English morality corrupting good Muslim boys and blurts out that he returns to Pakistan if he finds Bradford so distasteful. Yusuf tries to keep the peace, but Ghalib is eager to side with the majority in order to court votes in an upcoming election for the local council and Yusuf despairs that Rehman's gift for seeing good in everyone will prove his undoing. 

Meanwhile, recent politics graduate Khadija (Afsaneh Dehrouyeh) reminds her friends about their responsibilities as Muslim women. As she speaks, her mother, Reema (Mouna Albakry), is attacked by a hooded assailant as she returns from the shops and she hides her distress from Iraqi husband, Idris (Abas Eljanabi), and her son, Nyal (Mino Fourket), who has taken it upon himself to keep his sister on the straight and narrow, even though he is often up to no good with his pal, Tez (Andrew McCrimmon). Having met up with best friend Jilly (Becky Graham) to hand over the keys to their shared car, Khadija goes for an internship interview with the local MP and heads home. As she passes an empty church, however, she sees Zac leap out and stab Rehman. He shouts that he has a duty to drive the infidel from his land and cuts Khadija on the wrist, as she tries to protect the wounded man. 

As he backs away, Zac insists that she is also a victim of Islamic oppression. But she is too shocked by what she has witnessed to give a statement to the police. Yusuf is also stunned when the doctor informs him that Rehman is in a critical condition, but Ghalib is more worried about a swastika that has been daubed on a mosque door and homeless man Wayne (John Weaver) teases Nazir about getting all Sharia on the perpetrator. As a friend of Rehman's from the food bank, however, he also opines that racists will soon discover who their friends are if they ever find themselves hungry or on the streets. 

Frustrated with the lack of progress being made by the cops, Yusuf prays at the mosque and sneers at Ghalib for being more worried about the keys than Rehman's condition. But Zac drifts home as though nothing untoward has happened and plays job-seeker charades with Mark to pass the time. He mentions his visit to the church and Mark reveals that his parents were quite religious before reassuring his son that Christianity is not going to fade away. 

Mark goes to the job centre and is handed a flyer by one of Ghalib's campaign team, who promises him that employment will be a key priority if he is re-elected. Mark is far from convinced, but he is distracted by the sight of Sally wandering towards the canal towpath. He joins her on the bench and she wonders how her life might have turned out if she hadn't got pregnant and given up her university dream to get married. Mark tries to console her that things will work out, but she snaps back that he needs to start living in the real world, where the north will never be in the south, the rich will never live on their street and whites will regain their lost rights. 

Reema tells Khadija about being attacked, but pleads with her to say nothing to her father or brother, as they will overreact. When Khadija asks Jilly for advice, she suggests getting a baseball bat because evil only responds to violence. But Idris has already cautioned his daughter about the misuse of might in hoping that she will be able to use his intelligence and conviction to change a broken system. Yusuf also wants to change things and seeks Wayne for some ideas. He is eating chili at a soup kitchen and suggests trying something nobody expects to throw the naysayers off-guard. Suitably impressed by his refusal to knuckle under, Yusuf asks why the mosque does much for its upkeep than it does for the community and Wayne is surprised to learn that Rehman pays for its food donations out of his own pocket. They agree that Jesus and Mohammad sound like good men. 
 
Heading to the mosque, Yusuf is appalled to learn from DC Fairbairn (Chris Brailsford) that Ghalib is passing himself off as Rehman's cousin to get information on the inquiry. He dismisses the cop's suggestion this is a hate crime by branding it Islamaphobia and his mood is scarcely improved by the discovery that Ghalib has had the mosque locks changed. When he challenges him about it and accuses him of being a fraud, Ghalib throws him out, as a bemused Nazir looks on. Feeling sorry for himself, he harangues a female passer-by by snarling that not all Muslims are groomers, as some are just terrorists. 

As Yusuf sits beside Rehman's bed wondering what to do for the best, Zac visits the crime scene and mocks the female officer (Iona Thonger) on duty for protecting those trying to take over his country. He writes in a notebook before seeking out Craig (Richard Crehan), the brother of the girl who had been abused. Urging him to do something more constructive than sitting around and sighing, Zac recommends the example of Anders Breivik before launching into a tirade about radicalisation, drug-dealing, grooming and forced marriages. But Craig has already resorted to affirmative action and is feeling guilty for his unprovoked attack on Reema. 

Khadija is still pondering the motive for the assault when she gets chatting at the bus stop to a pensioner named Mary (Maureen Willis). The old lady greets her with `As-salaam alaikum' and Khadija wonders why other whites can't just take Muslims as they find them. Mary avers that people have lost the ability to talk to each other and jokes that all wars would end if folks just nattered at bus stops. However, Khadija returns home to a browbeating from Nyal, who has found out about his mother's ordeal and scoffs at his sister's request to take self-defence classes. She accuses him of being a Muslim for half an hour each Friday before storming off, leaving Idris to ask Reema why she didn't trust him. 

Nazir also tries to coax Yusuf into confiding in him when he offers him a lift to the hospital. He encourages him to use his voice and Rev Rushton says much the same thing when Yusuf finds him sitting with his comatose father. Rushton explains how they became friends doing inter-faith work and came to realise that co-existence is the only way to live. Touched by his words, Yusuf goes to the mosque, where Nazir is reading about the rape trial. He implies that the media don't need much encouragement to damn Muslims and notes how they discriminate between extremist terrorists and white blokes with a psychological disorder. 

Yusuf asks Nazir why he refrains from confronting his congregation about their misdeeds, but he insists that things only change through dialogue not denunciation. He reads from the Quran (citing the same verse that Zac used when stabbing Rehman) and declares that common sense should always be applied to following its teaching, otherwise holy words can be twisted to suit an ignoble cause. Yusuf is unimpressed, as he would rather kill the culprit than forgive him. When Nazir says the Quran strongly disapproves of violence, Yusuf says most people think the mosque is a terrorist training camp already. Ashamed, Yusuf asks Nazir to read him another passage and a montage follows of them discussing their faith. 

Across town, Zac finds mother Sally drinking in the afternoon. He asks why she has wasted her life, but she protests that being a mother is a fine vocation and she urges him to use his brains to change the system. Mark comes home and is angry with Sally for going through his pockets and they launch into a slanging match. Cringing at the ferocity of their fury, Zac confesses to stabbing Rehman in a bid to shut them up. Aghast that his son is a racist murderer, Mark grabs and shakes him, but Sally protects him and declares that he was trying to help them. Exasperated, Mark asks why he doesn't kill the gay couple next door on his cleansing crusade, but Sally is adamant that they sit tight and hope that nothing bad happens. 

Meanwhile, Fairbairn pays a call on Khadija and Reema mistakenly thinks he has come about her assault. She is cross with her daughter for not telling her that she witnessed a race crime and exhorts Fairbairn to make an arrest before the thug targets Khadija. Idris is livid with her for getting involved with the police and forbids her from taking self-defence classes because it insults his manhood. He orders Nayal to come home, but he resents the amount of freedom that Khadija was given and hisses that her independence is haram. But Idris reminds him that he also got to make his own choices, but made bad ones. 

Yusuf arrives at the hospital as Rehman comes round and promises that he will learn patience in all things. But these prove to be his father's last words and he dies as Mark hopes that God has a miracle up his sleeve to save him. He tends to the freesia on the mantelpiece and wishes they had a few more to help them perform gracefully under pressure. On an impulse, Mark goes to the church and chats with Rev Rushton about why God would let his son turn out so badly. 

Returning from giving her statement, Khadija weighs up her options now that Nyal is watching her every move. Much to Reema's disappointment, she announces that she is going to cover up whenever she goes outside, as she feels equally intimidated by strangers and her own sibling. Her mother tells her not to throw away all she has striven for and Idris despairs when he sees her ready to go out. Blaming Reema for not discouraging her, Idris sends Nyal to keep an eye on Khadija. But she opts against meeting up with Jilly when she sees her chatting to Tez in a bar. Seeing her lift the veil, as she leans against a pillar feeling stifled, Nyal leaves her alone and she hooks up with her former tutor, Junaid (Maroof Shaffi). He begs her not to give up and to remain proud of who she is and not let the bigots win. When a man passing stares at them, Junaid asks if he has never seen Clark Kent having a day off before. 

At the mosque, Ghalib admonishes Yusuf for abandoning the funeral guests to talk to Wayne. But he refuses to be cowed and says he knows the kind of man Ghalib is an hopes to avoid making similar mistakes while studying in Egypt. As he checks in at the airport, Mark gathers Zac's books in a box and asks him to hand over his notebook and knife. Unrepentant, Zac claims that he will have won if Rehman dies. But he isn't able to enjoy his triumph for long, as the police knock on the door and Mark leaves his wedding ring on the hall table as he leaves the sobbing Sally to reflect on the fact that the Muslim who bought their car had given them £50 extra because it was in his faith to help those less fortunate than himself. 

Across the city, Khadija stands in her hallway and reads the letter offering her the internship. She goes for a walk and drops the paper off a path looking out over the city. A stranger (Mark Morrell) stops to tick her off and he asks if she is going to throw herself off because Muslims are so proficient at committing suicide. She asks why he can't treat her as an ordinary woman, but he responds that he would ship her kind out if he had a chance. Khadija insists she is not being oppressed by her faith and leaves him to wallow in his bile, while she reports for work in the hope of making a difference. 

Despite its echoes of the exchange between Billy Fisher (Tom Courtenay) and Councillor Duxbury (Finlay Currie) in John Schlesinger's 1963 Bradford-set adaptation of Keith Waterhouse's Billy Liar, this final scene rather sums up the film's struggle to feel more like a slice of life than a polemical tract. Yet much of what Ibrahiem has to say about clashing cultures based on connected creeds ring true (right down to the fact that the killer and the Imam can find different meaning in the same Quranic passage) in what is a thoughtful and sincere examination of our seeming inability to live in harmony with people who don't think and act in exactly the same way that we do. 

Discreetly photographed by Daniele Cruccolini, the storylines interweave convincingly, if not always fluently, as the pacing of certain scenes is hampered by the stiffness of some of the performances. Young Matthew Thomas just about holds his own alongside the more experienced Aqib Khan and Afsaneh Dehrouyeh, but it's often easier to see him as a confused kid with a rabbit in a cage than a rabid white supremacist. Khan and Dehrouyeh's thinking also seems a little muddled at times, but the honesty of their mistakes contrasts tellingly with the two-faced cynicism of Irfan Nazir's corrupt politician and the hypocritical macho posturing of the drug-dealing Mino Fourket. 

Perhaps the most intriguing characters are the mothers played by Samantha Mesagno and Mouna Albakry, as they seem to have had more of influence on the personalities of Thomas and Dehrouyeh than their fathers. But the contrasting attitudes of Chris Madej and Abas Eljanabi also impinge upon the discussion of patriarchal traditions, as Ibrahiem examines the wider socio-economic issues that fuel both intolerance and insularity. Consequently, this often feels as much like a plea for social justice as an exposé of Islamaphobia. But it should spark debate wherever it screens and someone in the corridors of power should ensure that it's seen by those who both purport to and aspire to govern us.