Keif al-hal?

Original and culturally refreshing. Highly recommended for anyone looking to expand and enrich their palette for haute couture film. Truly a visual and intellectual delight that touches on contemporary issues in the Arab world.

It is a surprising gem for the first feature film to come out of conservative Saudi Arabia. However, the issues are anything other than conservative and take the audience through a range of emotions from laughter to tears all the while addressing controversial issues and pushing the limits on on women's rights.

It is nothing short of a revolutionary work to come out of Saudi Arabia -- and for that alone it is worth seeing.

Gabriel

Absolutely Fabulous!! Hail to Director Izidore Musallam and Prince Walid for doing this movie.............................................Let's have a sequel soon, because we all want to see what Sahar will do next! She's our Arab version of Brigitte Jones...! I agree with The New York Times: The plot may seem mundane but in important ways, "Keif al Hal" is a landmark project with big ambitions. It is the first feature film from Saudi Arabia, a country with not a single legal movie theater.We need more free-spirited characters and mentors for our young people to feed off of. Excellent Film - A must see, for Women and Men... Thanks

Although it has received a lot of criticism because of some mistakes in the film, a lot of people have crowded in cinemas throughout the Arab countries (Except Saudi Arabia as there is no theater's). The movie describes some practices in the Saudi society. These practices were left to the audience to decide what is right and what is wrong, which I believe this is one of the strong point of the film. The film shows that there are some good Saudi actors while the film star (Hisham Abdurohman) did not convince us with a good performance as expected. This film is considered to be the first Saudi long movie ever made. I hope this is the first step toward other successful Saudi movies.

Total disgrace! Truly awful! The screenplay and dialogue is a joke, and combined with a director who doesn't have a clue about life in Saudi Arabia. It's not a surprise, quite Saudi film ha, the director is Palestinian-Canadian, the writer is Lebanese, the lead actress is Jordanian, and the shooting took place in Dubai, and all these inauthentic elements shows well to make the film far from representing the Saudi society. Yes it contains some Saudi clichés, the stuff we see in cartoons in the newspapers everyday, but that's about everything. The film had the opportunity to show real problem with Saudi society, or at least give us something new and genuine about the youth troubles and concerns in Saudi Arabia, instead it copied and pasted from here and there, and the result was a mess. Even the supposedly love story in the movie doesn't exist or at least we haven't seen it. The only bright side in this total debacle is some good acting from the supporting cast. The veteran Khaled Sami was funny in a badly written role as the grand father, which he is clearly got miscasted for, as he looks younger than the actor who plays his son. Also the actor who plays the fanatic brother's role, Turki Al-Yusuf, has done well, in fact he was the best actor in the film. The rest of the cast, being professionals for long, did an OK job, but the lead actor Hisham Abdulrahman was just bad. He had one look of a little adorable bobby for all situations. He couldn't even say his lines in a proper manner. He has charisma that made him wins the title of Star Academy, a very famous reality show, and he is good in interviews and TV shows, but he was just the weakest link of this film. The lead actress I didn't mind very much, but even she wasn't exactly a strong presence, gave bad performances in some key scenes,, and overplayed her sensuality in unnecessary way.

The Film was a huge hit, Saudi flocked in thousands to neighboring Bahrain and Dubai to attend it when it was screened there, and it made a tone of money, then it was screened in pay-per-view, then in broadcasting TV, and that was in a span of a few weeks. This was to cash on Saudis eagerness to homegrown entertainment, but alas; the film was neither homegrown, nor entertaining.

This is a fact that this is the 1st Saudi feature film to be shown in cinema theaters but not in Saudi Arabia for a simple reason we don't have cinema theaters in our large kingdom .. not only one cinema theater! The government forbidden opening cinema theaters after the Islamic extremists OR the religious police (or both) asked for closing it in the late 1970s & the early 1980s .. accusing the 7th art with encouraging wrong sex relationships and stuff like that .. I don't see a powerful reason why we don't open cinema theaters!! .. we have many videos stores throughout the kingdom, we watch movies in the TV from some satellite channels, we can install the "Showtime" set channels and after all movies in general seems harmless in many ways .. I know many people how go to neighboring countries only to watch a couple of films .. I personally went to Bahrain several times only to watch films in theaters because watching it there is big fun unlike watching a movie home. Saudis pay the most expensive cinema ticket in the world, we travel to watch movies while the rest of the world have cinema theaters around every town. This is one of the problems that we are having!! ..

The movie is produced and presented by Rotana Filmed Entertainment which is a major company belongs to the Saudi tycoon-prince Alwaleed Bin Talal (the 8th richest man in the world).

The movie's title is a word means literally "how are you?" but it is also a slang means "what's up!", sometimes used as a slang to say "bad" about something and sometimes is used as a slang to tell someone politely to mind his business & not to interfere in someone else's affairs. Anyway, I think they meant (how are you) & (what's up!) in the same time, I could be wrong though.

Male actors are from Saudi Arabia like Hisham Abdulrahman who is very famous and has some popularity after winning 1st prize in Arabian realty show more like "American Idol", he works in some TV programs like the Arabian version of "Cash Taxi" .. the other famous actor is Khaled Sami who is funny and has a very good sense of humor .. other actors like Mishal Al-Mutairi, Turki Al-Yusuf and Ali Al Sabea are less famous and they work on some TV series shows. Female actresses are non-Saudis and they did a very good job speaking the Saudi accent .. Jordanian actress Mais Hamdan in leading role & Emeriti actress Fatima Al-Hawsani .. not that we don't have Saudi actresses but are few and not that good.

A Saudi critic " Rja Al-Mutairi" who writes for Alriyadh Newspaper (the most popular newspaper in the kingdom) wrote about it saying: "lets not expect much of the 1st Saudi feature film. It was born in unusual circumstances therefore we can't judge it under the usual standards like any other film. It is a fact that the movie hit a huge financial success in its 1st opening days only in Kingdom of Bahrain. The movie is fresh and is about a Saudi family deals (interacts) with controversial fresh issues inside the Saudi society like: women driving cars, the low-shallow thoughts about the arts, the guardianship of the society by a certain group & the differences between being conservative and being an extremist. The ideas are good but you feel you are lost in the middle of the movie. One of the movie's advantages is the beautiful music score by Rajeh Dawood which was good but sometimes it doesn't match or express what's in the picture. Turki Al-Yusuf did a great job .. his performance was the best alongside with Mais Hamdan .. the biggest loser is the leading actor Hisham Abdulrahman who came behind the supporting actors Mishal Al-Mutairi, Ali Al Sabea and Khaled Sami who did a good job within the limits of their roles.

after all, " Keif al-hal?" even with all of its disadvantages still an OK movie and it is a very good 1st step of Rotana .. and the movie became the speech of people and streets which is a golden goal to make a strong debates inside the Saudi society about movies in general until they become aware of the importance of the 7th art and other arts"

PS: there is another Saudi filmmaker "Abdullah Almohaisen" claims that he directed the 1st Saudi movie titled "Shadows of Silence".

I haven't seen the movie yet .. I hope I've been helpful.