Hideous Kinky

I had missed this movie when it came out over 20 years ago but now was able to watch it on the Kanopy streaming site via my public library's subscription. The title might be misleading, it derives from a short exchange between the two young daughters as they lay in bed, one says "hideous" and the other responds "kinky", it is not clear that they actually know what the meanings are.

The movie is filmed entirely in Morocco. Kate Winslet, only 22 during filming, seems to be playing an almost 30 woman with two young daughters. She is Julia, they leave their London home and her poet husband to find out what a different life is like. Her husband is supposed to send money to them periodically but that becomes unreliable and they have to devise ways to try to make ends meet.

The result is a series of adventures and misadventures before they finally board a train in the start of a journey back to England. It is a well made movie with many interesting elements, but when it is over there isn't much residual impact. Most interesting to me was to see a sort of travelogue of Morocco, a place I've never been.

A young English mother, Julia (Kate Winslet), packs up her two daughters, aged 5 and 7, moves to Morocco and embarks on a voyage of self discovery. Set in 1972, the film catches up with Julia and kids nine months into their trip. We're never told why she left London, but her artist-husband back home has just stopped providing the rent checks. This is putting a crimp in the self-awareness game. In the process of surviving and searching for Sufic fulfillment, Julia must also deal with her children's growing disenchantment with life in Morocco, and their desire to return to a stable, normal (and English) childhood. Family friction increases when she takes a young Moroccan lover, and a group of wealthy English ex-pats start second guessing Julia's childrearing abilities.

There is no big story here, no buildup of drama, and no real endgame. "Hideous Kinky" is a study of the family dynamics amongst this odd troupe. The acting is very good, especially the two children, and the on-location filming in Morocco is a treat. This film is definitely not for everyone, but if you are in to this type of movie, you should enjoy it. The single word that I would use to describe "Hideous Kinky" is 'honest'.

People who find the story "weak" "incomplete" "meandering" "frustrating" are missing the point there. The whole hippie travel experience was by definition all of the above so the film depicts very accurately what a woman of 25 in 1972 in Morocco with a local boyfriend would have been experiencing. The local colour is extremely well depicted as is the relationship between Julia and Bilal. Also the daughters not wanting any of it Sufi master or not; as it happened to so many commune kids from that period who left to take up merchant banking or join the army; most kids like order and not aimless wandering; so again: accurate depiction ... the film is by no means a masterpiece but it is nonetheless excellent and for anyone too young to remember the turn of the 70s a useful timetravel tool ... and yes all the acting is first-class here: The kids; Kate; all the Moroccan actors.

Hideous Kinky is based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Esther Freud (descended from a certain Swiss Psychiatrist). The film, set in the 1960's, follows Julia, a young English mother with her small children, Bea and Lucy, recently divorced from her creative, and philandering, husband. She is in Morocco, like many young Europeans inspired by the counter-culture philosophy of the time, to explore herself with respect to its eastern philosophy and culture.

It would be so easy for a film with such a subject to fall into the trap of using the 'orient' as merely a backdrop to depict fun backpackers engaging in pseudo-spiritual experiments. Or, on the other hand, take a more malevolent track of exploiting the bad feeling between Europeans and Arabs by having the bright young Julia encounter the traditional savage, woman-hating Arab as depicted in most western films, and pioneered by Valentino in Hollywood's silent classic The Sheik (1921).

However Hideous Kinky is refreshing as it is fun and 'exotic', but does not compromise in its sense of responsibility. It attempts to show an intelligent, though wayward, young mother with the genuine desire to explore her self internally, and captures the richness and humanity of the country and its people around her, exhibiting their interesting religious life and culture.

The feel of place in the film is astonishing. Marrakech, with the narrow streets and courtyards of its old town, dark and forbidding, but also revealing wonder, and the surrounding desert, are filmed deliciously with ambition and assurance. Julia, as well as being part of the 'drop out' European expat community, finds herself accessing different strands of Moroccan society, the common society of Morocco via her relationship with Bilal, a shady character who turns out to be a convict, played wonderfully by Said Taghmaoui, and the higher rungs via her ex-husband's friend, Santoni.

Central to the film- and what also complicates it, giving it an added, new dimension- is Julia's relationship with her two children, played astoundingly well by Bella Riza and Carrie Mullan. They, in turn, have their own incredible experiences, good and bad, as shown by their delightful but confused sayings. Julia, unusually in film, is a complex female character with many shades. She is naïve, foolish and irresponsible. At one point, she even manages to lose one of her daughters. But she is also smart, soulful and canny, and from her time in Morrocco, Julia does gain an insight into her self, but it is not the insight that she expected, and perhaps it is a genuine insight for that reason. She is played by Kate Winslet with characteristic heart and intelligence, and a brave choice as she had just come off the safety of the glitzy but vacuous blockbuster, Titanic.

Hideous Kinky is a rare thing- despite being government financed, usually the kiss of death for a British film, it is a refreshing and responsible film about an unconventional encounter between European and Arab.

"Hideous Kinky" is not a plot-driven movie but more of a meditation on time and place. And I can live with that. The photography is so rich with colors and beautiful locales, I want to visit Morrocco. The acting in splendid across the board with particular note to the two young girls who were handed quite a bit of duty with the roles. Where this movie failed me is in the character played by Kate Winslet. She behaves with such selfishness and stupidity--not once--but over and over again, that I really grew to dislike her. Sure...she may be a young, naive, adventurous, hippie in the early '70's, but a I refuse to believe she didn't realize what kind of danger she was putting her children in. "Hideous Kinky" is a good movie--not great. And it's good for one viewing, maybe two for the cinematography.