Hala— Official Trailer Apple TV+
Following the ordinary beats of a teen’s everyday life, writer/director Minhal Baig’s gentle and attentive sophomore feature “Hala” possesses something inherently extraordinary by just being about a young, female Muslim-American. It’s an unassuming film that hops on a casual rhythm and shines its wisdom to let its lead character Hala (Geraldine Viswanathan) just be; by neither indulging in culture-clash humor nor miserably insisting upon her social reclusion. Patiently, Baig lets us take in all the facts about Hala: She is a skateboarder and a gifted writer. She has close female friendships with non-Muslim American girls. She wears a headscarf, harbors a deep crush towards a sweet classmate and self-fulfills her healthy sexual desires in private. These small yet pronounced brushstrokes alone set Baig’s observant picture apart from its American coming-of-age counterparts, that either haven’t yet figured out what to do with the young Muslim experience, or, on a more basic level, how to include it.
