I have seen this movie after watching Ahmed Abdalla's "Microphone" and "Decor" and I think I can see the pattern here that makes Abdalla's movies so real focusing on Egypt's cultural and social problems.
To begin with, The movie starts with this young director "Mo" having to deal with directing issues while his friend trying to shoot a video with him talking about their mutual friend who was sentenced for two years in prison because of his novel referring to a true story of Ahmed Naji's book "Using life, 2014" who was actually sentenced with the same punishment in 2016 after a complain to the authorities for harming the Egyptian "public morality" with his writings.
Yes. We are living in a country that can put you in a prison for writing a fictionally explicit stories. This exemplifies how the authorities in this country attempt to restrict people's freedom and violate their rights without any actual crime committed.
As the movie progresses, we follow the journey of the director and now we are moving with our director not only physically but mentally too, we can see what he thinks of, his movie to come, his thoughts of his protagonist who is tring to escape the country illegally leaving his love back in Egypt, and at some point the director and his thoughts of his protagonist emerged showing the uncertainty of reality itself and the director's search for meaning in life.
The journey takes the director to meet different people from a totally different social class, he seems interested in a sex worker "Toto" he met by chance and while he tries to hook up with her, he faces macho competition with the taxi driver that leads to a fight between them and the police gets involved taking them to a police station where the director uses his own privileges to get out by himself, leaving "Toto" and the taxi driver behind. But as he walks away, he realizes that he must also secure their release, so he exercises his privileges to ensure their freedom, which he succeeds to do.
Consequently, social status in Egypt can offer protection based on the authorities' social stereotypes. Thus, people from different social classes are having different rights based on these stereotypes, and by rescuing "Toto" and the driver the director chooses to break these stereotypes.
Finally, the movie ended with a reading from Ahmed Naji's "Using life" -who showed in the movie as the 2nd taxi driver for less than a minute- questioning happiness in our lives as the perfect end for a great movie...
