Jinn (2018)

With the unique story of a teenage girl whose recently-divorced mother converts to Islam, I really wanted to like this film more than I did. The performances are strong, particularly that of Zoe Renee in the lead, but the narrative lets them down. The mother’s conversion feels like the desperate move of someone whose identity is still reeling from the end of their relationship. She is then almost abusive in forcing her new religion onto her daughter, who prior to conversion is a bubbly bisexual whose primary interests are dancing and eating pepperoni. The daughter becomes Muslim, except she seems to have forgotten to investigate at all what was now expected of her in her new religion. The ending tries to resolve all of this in a positive way, but by then I had no faith in the decision making abilities of these characters.