Review Story eclipsed by bad choices

Girls of the Sun (R16, 111 mins) Directed by Eva Husson Reviewed by James Croot ★★1⁄2

In English and French, Kurdish and Arabic with English subtitles.

Mathilde H (Emmanuelle Bercot) has seen many wars, seen many soldiers. However, the conflict-weary French journalist hasn’t met a group quite like the Kurdish female battalion led by Bahar (Golshifteh Farahani).

She’s a former lawyer, but what unites Bahar and her group is that they are all former captives of the Isis extremists they are now fighting against.

Like thousands of others, they were captured and subjected to terrible privations during an invasion of their homeland.

Now, they want to take their villages back, no matter the cost.

Based on events in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2014, French writerdirector Eva Husson’s drama is an evocative tale blighted by its broken, fractured narrative and a clearly tacked-on frame involving Bercot’s detached scribe.

With an eye patch and a painful backstory, Mathilde H is clearly inspired by real-life American journalist Marie Colvin (whose life was dramatised recently in the far superior A Private War).

But after attempting to initially emotionally invest the audience in her scenario, Husson (Bang Gang – A Modern Love Story) and co-writer Jacques Akchoti simply fade her into the background.

In some ways, that’s a good thing, because it allows the excellent Farahani (Paterson )to take centre stage.

She does a magnificent job of conveying Bahar’s passion for her cause, something that threatens to cloud her judgment as she seeks revenge against her former captors.

Unfortunately, the constant switching between her group’s planned assault and documenting their earlier ordeal and eventual escape means the movie tends to lose momentum, just at the wrong moments.

By the end, there’s also a sense of trying to over-egg the narrative, with an attempt to top an untimely impending birth with a potentially horrifying ‘‘twist’’ falling somewhat flat (in fact, it feels like something borrowed straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale).

It’s a pity, because somewhere among the muddled editing and storytelling there’s a terrific drama.