Brides (2025)

Two disillusioned British girls find themselves flying from London to Istanbul where they are to meet someone who will take them on to war torn Syria. Sadly for them, things at the Bean Kafe don’t go quite to plan and they have to improvise, think on their feet, and make their own way to their destination. We are never quite sure what their ultimate goal is, here, but as we follow their adventures we learn a little more about what motivated the more extrovert “Muna” (Safiyya Ingar) and her more subdued travel companion “Doe” (Ebada Hassan). The latter was having an hard time at school from an obnoxious bully, and her mum’s new choice of boyfriend wasn’t impressing her much either. “Muna” came from a more established, stable, background but with both of them exasperated and feeling that their lives were empty and meaningless, they sealed quite a profound pact. Whilst their story evolves with plenty of back references to their schooldays and before, plus we get an occasional narrative purporting to be a letter from a friend extolling the joys and happiness of their new God-loving and mutually supportive community, I found that neither characterisation was any where near developed enough. Moreover, even given that “Doe” was having a torrid time at school, it seemed to me far from likely that either of these women would have elected on quite such a blind solution to their issues, nor to treat those left behind with such inconsiderate disdain. Cinematically, it serves as a travelogue of Istanbul and shows that city and it’s people in a largely good light, barring the odd but infrequent bit of lechery, but it still never delivered a killer blow. It simply didn’t answer the question of why? As a coming of age drama, it is unconvincing and as a stimulant for conversation about religious indoctrination or opportunity, it barely scratches the surface. The performances are fine; the dialogue and the camerawork adequate, but it was all just too superficial and incomplete for me.