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Sea Shadow Movie Review

Sea Shadow is a 2011 Emirati coming-of-age film directed by Nawaf Al-Janahi. It’s a movie that is slight in plot and pacing, but it does deal with an important issue.

Two Emirati teenagers, Mansoor and Kaltham, live in a small neighborhood by the sea. They face their families’ traditional values as they consider what paths to take as adults. This is one of those movies that are so lightweight in tone that they cannot possibly achieve true cinematic strength, but still the flick is very enjoyable to watch and quite sweet in its emotion.

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The drama of the protagonist Mansoor is quite well developed while most of the other characters failed to register as strongly as he did. But the acting is strong across the board and both the friendship at its center and the family dynamic was very well portrayed and it rang true.

A boy not quite knowing how to talk to a girl that he likes and being afraid to start things with her due to societal and family pressures is the main theme of the film and the movie deals with it deftly. The United Arab Emirates is just like most Muslim countries – emotionally closed off and strict in their rules of that is expected of each person. The movie is, thus, extremely relevant for any of these countries and sad to witness for others.

It was also wonderful and highly important for the film to portray that men have it badly in these cultures, not as badly as the women obviously, but still they have their issues and a lot of pressure to do what society expects of them. Everybody has it rough there.

Sea Shadow could have been an insightful examination of the Emirati society, but it ended up being that only to a degree as it took an overly light and leisurely approach at storytelling. Yes, the pacing is all off here and the editing is just mediocre as scenes got cut with no finesse whatsoever. We just jump from plot point to another plot point with no smooth transitions. The directing definitely could have been better, but the dialogue is strong and the movie can be quite sweet and charming in its own right.

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Sea Shadow is certainly too lightweight and leisurely in pacing. It also needed much better editing and direction. Still, the acting is strong, the main character is well realized and the movie is sweet and charming at times. It offers a moving look into the many societal and family pressures that both men and women who live in Arab countries face on a regular basis.

My Rating – 3.5