Prickly Immigration Drama Is Misplaced in Transit

Oday Rasheed’s If You See One thing is a mirrored image of a peculiar stress all diasporic folks really feel — drawn in direction of a brand new life, but pulled by the place you have left behind. For Ali (Adam Bakri), an Iraqi physician residing in New York Metropolis together with his gallerist girlfriend, Katie (Jess Jacobs), the world of Baghdad’s civil unrest is a distant nightmare. But, additionally it is the one place the place he has household, or, seemingly, anybody who actually understands him.

At its finest, Rasheed’s movie is a meditation on the not possible predicament of being an immigrant on the identical time that pressing life calls you away from the place you could be. At different instances, it feels misplaced in transit, spending an excessive amount of time inside Katie’s neoliberal household drama regardless of Ali’s story being a prescient one.

Jess Jacobs co-wrote the screenplay after the premature dying of the unique screenwriter Avram Ludwig, however, sadly, her character’s arc is much less compelling. The movie is pulled between the inherent horrors of wading via the American immigration system and a second, lesser story about white liberalism, whereby Katie should cope with her overprotective, mildly racist father, Ward (Reed Birney). The latter seems like a distraction from the previous, fairly than two traces that inform and contain one another.

Ali and Katie dwell collectively however will not be married. He has but to obtain his medical license in America, however that doesn’t stop him from saving a buddy’s daughter’s life by, illegally, administering surgical procedure to her eye. The surgical procedure was so traumatic for all that Katie has frequent nightmares (impressively staged however jarringly positioned within the runtime). Katie runs an up-and-coming gallery as they put together to open a brand new exhibit. After we meet the 2 lovers, Ali has simply gotten phrase that his first listening to for political asylum has been granted.

On the best way to her father’s home for a household dinner with Katie’s sister, Margot (Lucy Owen) and brother-in-law Charlie (Reggie Gowland), Ali will get a collection of frantic calls from his buddy Salam in Baghdad. Within the midst of a protest that turned lethal, their buddy Dawod (Hadi Tabbal) has been kidnapped, and he’s being held ransom for $250,000. Within the uncomfortable place of being given this info on the identical time he’s purported to be impressing his potential father-in-law, Ali opts for silence.

For the remainder of the movie, Ali is put in a frantic bind to cobble collectively an astronomical payment, whereas additionally, for unconvincing causes, hiding that info from his accomplice. Stage veteran Reed Birney might be the movie’s best asset, however Ward is a distraction of a personality. He’s actually recognizable as a father whose Boomer-era liberalism belies a prejudiced disposition, however, thematically, his presence by no means actually folds simply into Rasheed’s bigger mission.

Most irritating of all is the plot comfort of Ali and Katie not being married. Margot and Charlie are proper to level out that issues could be simpler for them in the event that they have been, and it appears unusual that they are not contemplating it as an possibility, even when Ali’s sentiment that he did not fall for her out of “comfort” is romantic. Loads of not-yet-ready {couples} get married to maintain somebody from deportation, and the shortage of this feature is odd. It additionally feels miscalculated; if the concept is to maintain Ali in limbo, so be it, however current months have proven that ICE shouldn’t be precisely shy about detaining naturalized (and even American-born) residents, so the hesitation about marriage shouldn’t be logical to the story.

Additional, the movie’s pacing is like molasses, and that slow-moving deliberateness sucks the strain out of the air that the script appears to need to create. The story of Ali navigating immigration as his buddy is kidnapped, and the story of Ali making an attempt to politely slot in with a racist household that mocks consuming together with your palms and the shortage of American soccer in Iraq, do not naturally go collectively. Every is completed a disservice, and Bakri shouldn’t be adept or expressive sufficient to carry the fabric.

Finally, the movie is much too placid and noncommittal to earn its extra transferring climax. It is exhausting to actually care about these characters when their stream of selections appears both improperly motivated or else frustratingly egocentric. However there’s one thing right here. The movie’s title invokes the MTA’s tattle-tale mantra of peer-to-peer policing, suggesting a cinematic mission rebuking racist paranoia. However If You See One thing‘s finest cost is a subversion of it. “For those who see one thing, say one thing.” Maybe, for Ali, he must say extra — for Dawod, for Katie, for himself.