Hafsia Herzi’s sensitive and affecting coming-of-age drama The Little Sister tells the story of Fatima, a devout young Muslim woman, as she struggles to balance the dictates of her religion with her sexuality.
Fatima (Nadia Melliti) is a good student, a devout Muslim and, as the youngest daughter of her French-Algerian family, “the last one.” She has a supportive mother, two affectionate (though sometimes critical) older sisters, and a father who’s demanding but remote. Like every 17-year-old, she struggles with reconciling the different parts of her life, but there’s an aspect of this that seems particularly impossible — evident the first time we see her uncomfortable interactions with her boyfriend.
We soon realize Fatima isn’t interested in boys but, because of her own misgivings (based on her faith and also her desire not to disrupt her family), she’s reluctant to discuss her sexuality with anyone. Forced to live a secret life, she criss-crosses Paris making clandestine rendezvous with women she finds online. But when she meets Ji-Na (Ji-Min Park), a young Korean woman, Fatima falls hopelessly in love, and can no longer accept the half-life she’s been living.
Directed by Hafsia Herzi, The Little Sister is based on Fatima Daas’ autofictional novel The Last One (La petite dernière). From the lovely moment where Fatima’s mother gives her a football jersey with her name on it, to the quiet scenes where Fatima plays football alone — an index of her loneliness and her independence — to Fatima’s bemused tolerance of the oafish behaviour of the immature boys she meets, this is a film of graceful notes.
The Little Sister has the poetic feel of its quietly observant source material, the vibrancy and assurance of an emerging director coming into her own, and a textured and transfixing performance by Melliti as Fatima.
ROBYN CITIZEN
Screenings
Scotiabank 13
Scotiabank 14
Scotiabank 6