Certified Mail

There's a winning intimacy to this character study from debut director Hisham Saqr even when the narrative threatens to crumble, helped enormously by an intense performance from Egyptian star Basma at its centre.

She plays Hala, middle-class wife to bank worker Khaled (Mohamed Sarhan) and mother of a newborn baby. She is also suffering a bout of depression - the latest in a long line - that leads her to attempt suicide in the opening few minutes of the film. Khaled is supportive, as is her neighbour and friend Mona (Passant Shawky) but when a mistake is made at the bank, Khaled finds himself hauled off to jail and she is left holding the baby. "Bless you, you are fine now," she is told after being treated for her overdose as she leaves hospital - it's a flippant remark and one that brings home the way mental health issues can be easily dismissed.

Fragility is everywhere in Hala's life, from her mental health to her financial state, which sees her forced to move back in with her mother and much younger teenage sister - bringing with it an additional set of problems. Saqr establishes the characters with some skill, allowing his protagonist to remain 'difficult' rather than settling into a groove, particularly evident in her interaction with Mona, who finds her friend a less than sympathetic ear to her own problems - and showing Hala's "obsessions" through small details, like her being repeatedly distracted by a hole in a sofa.

He is less successful when it comes to storytelling, however, introducing a series of mysterious letters at the midway point of the movie - which beyond providing a motivational macguffin for Hala and a chance to show he can turn a sentence - are more confusing than compelling. The mood is also relentlessly downbeat, which acts as a drag to the pacing and later on, he resorts to contrivance in order to move the plot forward. As a debut, Saqr deserves praise for putting multifaceted women front and centre even if his narrative framework ends up feeling almost as fragile as his central character.