Honeymoonish, the review of the Netflix film

Write a review of a film like Honeymoonish It’s a tall order. And not because the film is the custodian of who knows what key, but because the one directed by Elie El-Semaan is a feature film totally free from even the slightest cinematic nuance. Much more simply, there is nothing inside that would be worth seeing. But let’s go in order: we have written many times, on these pages, how streaming distribution helps the public to turn their gaze towards other industries linked to more or less distant countries. This also happens with Honeymoonish, Kuwaiti film shot in Lebanon. It goes without saying, there is a strong local imprintilluminating traditions and customs of Arab countries (in fact, we are in Kuwait).

It could be fascinating, but everything, however, is sweetened and colored under the filter of romantic comedy; a language that often captures the streaming public and, as in this case, the public Netflix. An international language, but surrounded by a general artificiality that touches every level of Honeymoonish. From the plot to the interpretations, from the “twists” to the writing: the film by the Lebanese El-Semaan (first work) seems to be the direct result of a gentrification which has also fully affected the screenplays, now inextricably linked to a lexicon resulting from the algorithmboth audiovisual and a product of social networks.

Honeymoonish, the plot: do opposites attract?

As proof of this, the presence of Nour Al Ghandour as the protagonist, Noor. The Egyptian actress boasts 11 million followers on Instagram, thus attracting the general public. Not only that, in Honeymoonish there is also Ascia Al Faraj (2 million followers) who is a fashion blogger by profession. A clear mix between different mediums which, however, do not perform at their best. Of course, the one written by Eiad Saleh is a film essentially devoted to carefree entertainment. As the title suggests, the setting is that of a honeymoon: Noor, after a disappointment in love, marries Hamad (Mahmoud Boushahri). The two begin a journey which, imagine what, will turn out to be full of unexpected events. The couple, in fact, is completely different, almost irreconcilable. So, without beating around the bush, the El-Semaan rom-com tries to answer the fateful question again: do opposites attract or not?

A work impossible to save

The question that hovers over the plot is quite rhetorical, or at least in line with Honeymoonish’s purpose. No kind of minimum commitment, just the most distracted of visions. As mentioned, little is saved from the film: there is a patina of a fashion magazine that incorporates the images, sizzling a forgettable humor and, at times, incommunicable. The glimpses of Kuwait, which would then be the Lebanese ones, act as a film-tourism pretext, and the impeccability of the characters ends up being the emblem of artifice, obsessed with appearances, social media, parties. The marriage convenient between Noor and Hamad will therefore have the most obvious of developments, up to an ending that somehow puts the love side of the story back in place, after a series of situations much more similar to curtain calls. If the musical accompaniment could be the only salvation of a film impossible to save (and, strange but true, impossible to review: how can you judge something in which everything is missing?), Honeymoonish once again opens up to a reflection: if it is vital to broaden the panorama of streaming users, allowing them to discover less inflated films, also through frivolous or entertainment works, how much does it become demeaning for the platforms to add them to the catalogue? productions of such low quality?