The concept itself was pretty solid - a story about one of the most notorious terrorists the world has ever seen cleverly disguised in a family/love drama about the couple of immigrants struggling not only with finding their own place under the sun but also prejudices and difficulties within these communities. The execution, however, less solid.
First 1/3 of the film is good, setting up the story, the characters and the plot. We get to see this very confident, flamboyant, opinionated and at times aggressive lad coupled with a seemingly down to earth girl, who, as the occasional atypically wild behaviour would show, is dealing with some sort of pressure herself. We'll soon learn what or better say who is the reason for that as her relationship with the lad grows more serious, setting her on a path of conflict with her mum. All of it is made more believable by a very interesting mix of German, English, Turkish and Arabic.
We also learn, relatively quickly, that the forbidden love story isn't all this movie is about as the lad grows more conservative and more affected by the religion and Islamic idea(l)s.
And that is when the weaknesses of the film start to show. This sinking into the radicalism is not very well shown and it feels artificial and half hearted. Apart from a maternity ward scene, we just don't get that, nor the wife's position on that part. The fact the movie structure are these five chapters with huge chronological leaps doesn't help. In short - we don't get enough of what will become pivotal to the film. It just ends up feeling disjointed and unfocused.
The weakest part of the film is, regrettably, the ending. The story slows down as it progresses, instead of speeding up, allowing you enough time to anticipate the supposed plot twist, which again, is very slow and anticlimactic. There's almost no drama, as the film continued to be as melancholic as the female protagonist.
When your entire film is a seemingly slow burning love story with a huge twist, it has to be a contrast to everything that preceded it. It has to pull the rug from under your feed. This one just didn't. It was an emotionally barren, unimpactful ending.
The same types of films where the tone change, climax and twist was infinitely better and more emotionally charged in famous Hair (1979) and a lesser known Serbian film Premeditated Murder (1995)
