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Film review: Quickening is a nuanced coming-of-age tale

Writer/director Haya Waseem delivers a powerful first dramatic feature

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Quickening, rather than open with an inspirational quotation or “inspired by a true story,” gives viewers a definition. “Pseudocyesis: a psychosomatic state that occurs without conception and is marked by some of the physical symptoms and changes in hormonal balance of pregnancy.”

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You’ll need to keep that in mind as you follow the touching, heart-breaking tale of Sheila (Arooj Azeem), a Canadian university student and the daughter of Pakistani immigrants, as she tries to navigate the social obligations and expectations of two worlds at the same time.

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Sheila, a performing arts major, seems to have a normal life (whatever that means). She has friends at school, a relatively stable family, and childhood friends in the Pakistani community. She’s crushing hard on a guy named Eden (Quinn Underwood). But she’s not close enough to anyone to confide her deepest feelings and her worst fears.

We’ve all seen movies where parents try to thwart young love, only to be proven backward and wrong. But what happens when that love falls apart, quite outside of parental meddling? When Eden suddenly breaks up with Sheila, her already fragile psyche takes a turn for the worse. Suddenly convinced she’s pregnant, she has no idea what to do about it.

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Azeem does great work here as Sheila, playing opposite her real-life parents, who are struggling with what kinds of limits to impose on their daughter, and also with a sudden job loss by the father. And writer/director Haya Waseem delivers a powerful first dramatic feature, having previously made documentaries and shorts, and worked as an editor.

Stunningly shot and backed by a dreamy score, Quickening – the title is also the term for when a mother feels the foetus moving for the first time – has powerful things to say about mental health issues in young adults, without ever stooping to didacticism or easy answers. It’s also, quite simply, a compelling and resonant coming-of-age drama.

Quickening opens April 29 in Toronto, with other cities to follow.

3.5 stars out of 5

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