Wadjda is a 2012 film from Saudi Arabia directed by Haifaa al-Mansour.
The eponymous Wadjda is a young Saudi girl who desires a bicycle in order to race her friend Abdullah, even though women riding bicycles is frowned upon in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia. Although not particularly pious, she sees her chance to afford a new bike when the conservative headmistress of her school announces a Quran recitation competition with a cash prize of slightly more than the bike costs. Meanwhile, her family's home life is threatened when her father considers taking a second wife.
Known as the first Saudi film directed by a female director.
Tropes:
- Antenna Adjusting: Wadjda has extended the antenna to her transistor radio all the way across the wall, and hung clothes hangers off of it, in order to improve reception. (She listens to Western music.)
- Bittersweet Ending: Wadjda's father essentially abandons the family, taking a second wife. But Wadjda's mom becomes more supportive of her, and buys her the bicycle instead of the sexy red dress.
- The Cake Is a Lie: Wadjda works her ass off to memorize the Koran for the contest, and she wins, only to be told that the 1000 Saudi riyal will be donated to Palestinian fighters, instead of going to her so she can get a bike.
- Call-Back: Early in the film Wadjda's father gives her a magnetic rock, a piece of a meteorite. At the climactic Koran competition, she is holding the stone.
- Earlier, Wadjda asks her mother why her hair is so long, she replies that her father likes women with long and silky hair. At the end of the movie, as Wadjda finds her mother on the rooftop watching her husband's second wedding, she has cut her hair into a bob, meaning that she has moved on from him.
- Childhood Marriage Promise: Abdullah states that he will marry Wadjda once they've grown-up.
- Determinator: Wadjda wants that bicycle badly. She resolves to join the religion class and attend a Quran recitation competition just to win the money, when she previously couldn't be bothered with such stuff.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Wadjda waves to a friend in the middle of choir practice, getting in trouble with the teacher, establishing her as something of a free spirit.
- Also all the other schoolgirls wear plain black Mary Jane shoes, while she wears a black pair of Chuck Taylors.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Parent: Wadjda's mother starts as strict as the headmistress, and adamantly refuses to buy her a bicycle because it is immoral by Saudi standard. Her Character Development allows her to become more supportive of her daughter.
- The Fundamentalist: The headmistress, Miss Hussa, who enforces the Sharia laws on the schoolgirls, and often reprimands Wadjda.
- Heir Club for Men: Wadjda learn that her family tree features only the male names. She tries to add her name, but she's rebuffed. Also, her father is looking for a second wife to father a son.
- Hypocrite: Ms Hussa, the hardcore, fundamentalist headmistress, is gossiped of having an affair with a man. Wadjda slams her hypocrisy to her face when the headmistress denies her the money she won in the contest.
- Important Haircut: Wadjda's mother cuts her hair in a bob haircut when her husband abandons her, meaning that she'll learn to be independent from him.
- Lady in Red: Wadjda's mother wants to buy herself a red dress for a wedding, so she'll look stunning on it (and indeed she does), and scare off the women who may possibly marry her husband.
- Law of Inverse Fertility: Wadjda's mother almost died giving birth to her and she can't bear other children. Her husband is being pressured to find a second wife to father a son.
- Little Miss Snarker: Wadjda is full of sass. When she's reprimanded by a student that men can see her playing in the yard unveiled she snarks that they must be Superman to see her from that roof.
- Match Cut:
- From Wadjda's mother pouring coffee into a thermos in the kitchen, to the van driver pouring something (coolant?) into the van engine outside.
- From Wadjda and her friend Abdullah idly kicking their feet as they sit, to another girl putting on formal shoes for the group Koran lesson.
- Mistaken for Gay: Played for drama. Two of the young ladies at the school are only giving each other pedicures, but bitchy Miss Hussa sees this and thinks they're lesbians. They instantly become outcasts and Miss Hussa enforces stricter rules.
- Model Couple: Wadjda's parents are easily the most conventionally attractive people that appear on-screen. Both characters are noted by other people how handsome they are.
- My Beloved Smother: Wadjda's mother is affectionate and caring, but overtly strict and protective. She projects the same restrictive rules she was raised with instead of letting Wadjda express herself until she Took a Level in Badass.
- Parents as People: Wadjda's father is affectionate but distant (and works away from his family most of the time). Her mother is well-meaning but overtly strict, and focused on her marital problems. Her father eventually detaches from them even more, and her mother grows out of her obsessions.
- Perfumigation: Wadjda delivers Abeer's permission-to-exit card to Abeer's brother. After he pays her, she gets a whiff of the money and says "What? Even your cash smells like cologne?"
- Polyamory: The film ends with Wadjda's father getting a second wife, over his first wife's opposition, because she has not given him a son.
- Puppy Love: Abdullah is visibly smitten with Wadjda, and her mother jokes that he's her fiancé.
- Reformed, but Rejected: Deconstructed. Wadjda decides to clean-up her reputation by joining the religion class and joining the Quran recitation competition, earning the headmistress' approval for it. The truth is that she made the change because she wanted the money for that bike, which both her mother and the teacher vehemently deny to her.
- Shadow Archetype: Ms Hussa is one to both Wadjda and her mother.
- To Wadjda. Ms. Hussa reveals that she can relate to Wadjda rebelliousness, and indeed the headmistress does not really follow the rules she enforces on her pupils (she has a career of her own, she isn't married and has a secret lover). You get the feeling that somehow she must have decided to follow the flow to satisfy her ambitions, and indeed Wadjda herself pretends to conform to the rules for her agenda (buying the forbidden bicycle).
- To Mother. They are both conventionally beautiful, glamorous women who are also extremely religious and very strict parental figures to Wadjda. However, Ms. Hussa is an Hypocrite, while Mother can be misguided and bigoted but definitely has Wadjda's best interests in her heart.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Wadjda delivers a funny one when Miss Hussa preaches her about hypocrisy (she won the religious contest just to get the money, a very unreligious thing to do), Wadjda reminds her about her "handsome thief"
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: As Wadjda is hitting puberty, Ms. Hussa orders Wadjda to start wearing an abaya (the traditional Muslim robe who covers body and clothes) instead of the plain hijab for little girls she has worn for most of the film. Her mother is delighted by the news and lends her one of hers abaya.
- Took a Level in Badass: Wadjda's mother lets her husband go and resolves to rely on herself from that time on. She also buys the bicycle for Wadjda when she previously spent a film preaching the immorality of that poor bike.
- Wham Line: It's been hinted at throughout the movie, but during the ending:Wadja: What's with the wedding at Grandma's? I thought my uncle's wedding was after a month.Wadja's mother becomes silent as she looks back at the wedding.Wadja's Mother: It isn't your uncle's wedding.
- You Remind Me of X: Ms Hussa reveals to Wadjda that she was like her in her childhood, and thinks Wadjda should take her as an example.
