JustWatch

Wadjda

2012 ‘وجدة‎‎’ Directed by Haifaa al-Mansour

Wadjda is a 10-year-old girl living in a suburb of Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Although she lives in a conservative world, Wadjda is fun loving, entrepreneurial and always pushing the boundaries of what she can get away with. After a fight with her friend Abdullah, a neighborhood boy she shouldn't be playing with, Wadjda sees a beautiful green bicycle for sale. She wants the bicycle desperately so that she can beat Abdullah in a race. But Wadjda's mother won't allow it, fearing repercussions from a society that sees bicycles as dangerous to a girl's virtue. So Wadjda decides to try and raise the money herself...

Reem Abdullah Waad Mohammed Abdullrahman Algohani Ahd Sultan Al Assaf Dana Abdullilah Rehab Ahmed Rafa Al Sanea Sara Aljaber Noura Faisal Talal Loay Sami Hazim Mohammed Zahir Nouf Saad Faoziah Alyaaqop

Alternative Titles

腳踏車大作戰, To apagorevmeno podilato, Den grønne cykel, La bicicleta verde, Den gröna cykeln, Zeleno kolo, Vađda, Shôjo wa Jitensha ni Notte, La bicicletta verde, Vecide, O Sonho de Wadjda, Dziewczynka w trampkach, Yaджда, Den grønne sykkelen, Das Mädchen Wadjda, Vihreä polkupyörä, 와즈다

drama

98 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Rida ★★★ 4

Wadjda is one of those films with a reputation that precedes any question of its quality. It's the first film by a Saudi woman and the first film to be shot in Saudi Arabia, but oddly enough, it's thoroughly Western in both its narrative and outlook.
Thus combined, Wadjda becomes a film that is at once engaging and predictable, and depressing and uplifting in equal measure. The central performance by Waad Mohammed is the life and soul of Wadjda, and although the adults often falter in their roles, Mohammed and Abdulrahman Algohani, the boy who plays her only friend, play wonderfully off each other.
The film is quietly subversive due to Wadjda's adroit manipulation of the society she lives in,…
Review by Jaime Rebanal ★★★★ 4

When you think about how much Wadjda has achieved in history, it's quite a miracle that this movie was made. Aside from being the first film shot entirely within Saudi Arabia, it is also the first film to have been directed by a Saudi woman. But even to think that it will seem conventional from an outsider's perspective of Saudi culture, there's a much greater level to which Wadjda speaks for because of what ground it breaks for their own society. It's a film that came right out from a country where we know that cinema in general had been banned for years, but the transgressive nature behind what we already can see as a simple coming-of-age tale is among…
Review by davidehrlich ★★★½

the first female-directed saudi arabian film. smart, affable, appreciably complex (which is a relief given the tone of the first act). wholly commendable, if never particularly involving.
Review by Edgar Cochran ★★★½ 8

A very simple story, but told with a big heart, Wadjda is a film entirely shot in Saudi Arabia about an intrepid girl who seeks to raise money participating in her school's Koran recitation competition in order to beat his annoying neighbour in a bicycle race. That's the entire central plot, but around it, several relevant elements about a repressed and fundamentalist society lie between frames, and come out to the surface very explicitly.
Relevant to say and trascendent to point out, Wadjda has historically national relevance in Saudi Arabia for being the first feature made by a female filmmaker. Around the main character Wadjda, we see the Muslim culture very explicitly and the current cultural state regarding the appreciation…
Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★

Written and directed by Haifaa al-Mansour, and the first full-length movie made by a female Saudi director, Wadjda is a straightforward tale of a ten-year-old girl living in the Saudi Arabian capital. It’s communicated with comprehensibility, and al-Mansour’s artistic style along with the employment of a mainly unprofessional cast brings to mind neorealism. It’s the first film shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, and despite labouring under the constraints of a rigorously tyrannical culture, it feels enlightening without feeling explanatory; operating more on observation than on a standard reliance of narrative.
Review by Alex ★★★★

Simple in structure and light on narrative drama, Wadjda is an exercise in observation and trusting your characters and actors to engage the audience. Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) is a plucky young girl determined to buy an expensive bike to race against her friend Abdullah. It wouldn't surprise me if Wadjda was semi-autobiographical; writer-director Haifaa al-Mansour clearly having the same level of daring and intelligence to pull off the first feature film by a Saudi woman and the first filmed entirely in Saudi Arabia.
Maybe a little bit De Sica, a little Truffaut, perhaps even some Kor-eeda, but definitely an exciting voice in world cinema. I look forward to checking out al-Mansour's latest film, The Perfect Candidate, for another taste of Saudi culture.
Asian Cinema
Review by Rethaam ★★★★ 1

im still trying to have a fvcking BICYCLE
Review by StormofCuteness ★★★★ 7

This film gets an extra half star just because of the unbelievable obstacles to it even existing! I felt like a voyeur getting this inside look into the lives of girls and women in Saudi Arabia.
As well I should, since this is the first feature length film ever fully shot there AND the first directed by a woman. It's heartbreaking to realize that even though this is the 1st film ever submitted by its country for Best Foreign Picture Oscar, there were no public cinemas there to see it!
Anyway, the young star of the film is an absolute delight as is her neighborhood friend who happens to be a boy. Her indefatigable spirit makes this heartwarming and heartbreaking at the very same time. Writer and director, Haifaa al-Mansour obvious love for her story and her bravery in telling what may seem simple to Western audiences is clearly a triumph on all the levels that matter.
Review by al paciknows ★★★★

"that's a real mustache, a falcon could sit on it"
Review by <Todd> ★★★½ 1

"Your stupid behavior will haunt you forever." -Hussa,
-FC Anniversary Scavenger Hunt (13/21): boxd.it/7uQXe "In honor of broadening one's horizons, pick a movie from a country you haven't seen a film from yet! (Theo) "
This is a great film with an inspiring story behind it.
Haifaa al-Mansour's direction is perfect for this intimate story of a girl trying to get a bike set against the gendered culture of Saudi Arabia. The film looks pretty and the performances are heartfelt. It's a challenging script because it's trying to do a lot in a short period of time but it never feels clumsy. On occasion the criticism might be too on the nose for my tastes but as a whole this really impressed and entertained me.
Review by CinemaCl🎃wn ★★★½

A cinema from the very nation where cinema itself is banned, Wadjda tries to portray the everyday struggle women undergo in the highly conservative nation of Saudi Arabia which restricts them from driving, going out unveiled, talk to men in public or disobeying their husbands, all captured in a very delicate manner by director, Haifaa al-Mansour, the country's first female filmmaker.
Set in Riyadh & shot entirely on location, Wadjda tells the story of an 11-year old girl who wants a bicycle for herself but is denied by her mother as girls riding bikes is considered immoral and who herself is distracted because her husband wants to marry again so that his new wife can provide him with a son. When…
Review by Melissa Tamminga ★★★½

Rewatched this, this time with my 10-year old daughter, who loved it and the little details about Wadjda’s character she could so much relate to, like Wadjda refusing to get Mary Jane shoes for school and choosing instead to color her tennis shoes in with a black marker. I think there’s a perception that kids would never sit through a subtitled, “slow” movie, but I dunno. I think, like anybody, they often just want to see fleshed out human beings on screen.