Layla M.

2016

1 hr. 50 min.

Drama

List

100%

10 Reviews

Tomatometer

79%

50+ Ratings

Audience Score

When a Moroccan teenager in Amsterdam is radicalized, she marries a jihadist and joins an Islamist cell in the Middle East, but she finds there are other prejudices there, too.

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Audience Member

I feel like this movie had so much potential. It had the ability to tell a great story but was ultimately too rushed. The movie didn't build up the radicalization enough and made it seem abrupt and sudden. Layla doesn't seem sympathetic because of this but rather spoiled and angsty. You could add more time to this, to make her transition feel more realistic, and more understandable. But the only real incident we see prior to her radicalization is a comment at a football game. Her family is well adjusted, she is well off enough to live a middle class life in Amsterdam, and she is able to go to university to study. She gives this all up for a radical cause yet the film take the time to build this story up. Stories of people that give up these kinds of life don't come from a bad day or week but months if not years of build up. And a lot of that is implied but it doesn't show the increasing racism in Dutch society. Overall the film just feels like a waste.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

02/11/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Garbage. The movie shows a woman who falls in love with a man who is religious. It is because of him, she starts reading the Koran more and more, making her a fanatic who agrees to go with her husband to join a terrorist organisation. This movie practically shows us that if you read the Koran you would be more likely to join terrorists, become more extremist and even paranoid that the west has it out for you. Total waste of time. I would recommend watching anything other than this crap.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

02/21/23

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Audience Member

A very well made movie with a great story that'll open your eyes to things that go on in the world. Great acting and the script make this worth seeing.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/09/23

Full Review

Audience Member

No editorial in this film. No matter where you stand on the subject matter, you will be impressed with the impartiality of the effort. Love how the movie ends with a question mark of sorts. Nice effect.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/24/23

Full Review

Audience Member

A stark reminder of how anger can colour perception. This film is also a warning to those of us who can get oblivious of changing times and expect reality to be what it used to be. Immigration to western countries have definitely modified social and cultural rules and it pays to lend serious attention when someone gets hypersensitive to what otherwise be a slight dent on one's identity. Films like these call for the rejection of single identities, for we Layla was a lot more than just a Muslim girl, or an immigrant girl in Holland. She was a woman with given opportunities.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

01/27/23

Full Review

Audience Member

This is one of the best films I have seen, very well presented and a story well seen by women and men of any culture, though Layla M. is a girl and European Islamic culture the one the skilled Dutch director and her writer-husband focus upon. Why this movie has no rating and yet the gratuitously-indulgent "Call Me By Your Name" not only is rated but has received a "tomatometer" rating of 98% even before its official release is something both my husband and I wonder about. Neither of us saw the latter film as a great "coming of age" movie; we saw that LA Times "Envelope Series" movie as a hedonistic romp by a gay director and his many producer-actor friends, all men who all apparently hold the view that what women can contribute is servicing confused men in every way one might imagine and doing so without bitterness or regret. (Think Harvey Weinstein in the context of heterosexual encounters, at least as those are being reported almost daily?) The Layla M. story, in contrast, was genuine, gripping and - at least in my opinion - a far-more-important story for Rotten Tomatoes (and other film presenters/reviewers) to focus attention upon if our world is to see progress.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/06/23

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Mijke de Jong

Director

Nora El Koussour

Layla

Ilias Addab

Abdel

Mijke de Jong

Screenwriter

Jan Eilander

Screenwriter

Arnold Heslenfeld

Producer

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Glenn Kenny

New York Times

A brisk, involving film that depicts "radicalization" from a humanist angle while applying proper consideration to the political and cultural currents from which such transformations stem.

May 8, 2018

Full Review

Scott Tobias

Variety

An astute detailing of a Muslim woman's radicalization in Amsterdam and beyond.

Sep 11, 2016

Full Review

Joni Blyth

One Room With A View

Layla M. is as topical as it is heartbreaking. This atypical coming-of-age story is a fantastic debut for Nora El Koussour.

Rated: 4/5

Mar 15, 2019

Full Review

Michael McNeely

That Shelf

The brilliance of this film and El Koussour's performance is that Layla's M.'s indoctrination to being a wife of a Jihadist is logical, and even relatable.

Feb 21, 2019

Full Review

Joe Reid

Decider

... the filmmakers do a rather great job getting the audience to understand their lives and minds and often their hearts.

Apr 13, 2018

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Eddie Strait

The Daily Dot

It's a stark reminder that some of the worst choices we can come from universal places of injustice and alienation.

Rated: 3.5/5

Mar 27, 2018

Full Review

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Synopsis

When a Moroccan teenager in Amsterdam is radicalized, she marries a jihadist and joins an Islamist cell in the Middle East, but she finds there are other prejudices there, too.

Director: Mijke de Jong
Screenwriter: Mijke de Jong, Jan Eilander
Production Co: Chromosom Filmproduktion, Topkapi Films, Schiwago Film GmbH
Genre: Drama
Original Language: Dutch
Release Date (Streaming): Mar 23, 2018

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