Asrar el-banaat

"A Girl's Secrets" is a well-acted drama from Egypt about what happens when two teenagers from respectable middle-class families in Cairo end up having a baby.

Yasmine is a pretty, outgoing 16-year old, whose life turns upside down when she accidentally becomes pregnant. This is a fairly common plot/subplot in the United States, and it was refreshing to see this done from a non-Western point-of-view.

All sorts of issues come into play....religion, family honor, abortion, female circumcision, shotgun marriage.....as a result of the pregnancy, which Yasmine managed to hide from her loving family until the seventh month. There are also a number of more subtle questions posed. Yasmine's parents raised her a great deal more conservatively than her best friend and cousin. Did this conservative upbringing play a part in what happened? It is so rare in the West that we see the family dynamics of a Middle Eastern family. The families of both the teenage mother and father deeply love their children, and are all flawed and realistic characters. Yasmine's parents are angry and ashamed of their daughter's behavior, but they also love her and want to do what's best for her. But what to do? This emotional confusion is at the heart of the film, as the families struggle to cope with this most unwanted problem.

The acting is excellent, and if I had any complaint it was about a slight over-reliance on flashbacks to tell the back-story. I imagine it took a lot of courage to make this film in Egypt. I first heard about it when Egypt submitted it to the Oscars about five years ago, and I was finally able to locate it on ebay.

Very well done.

8.5/10