Hideous Kinky *** (1998, Kate Winslet, Saïd Taghmaoui) – Classic Movie Review 1694

Director Gilles MacKinnon’s 1998 drama stars an excellent Kate Winslet, who impresses as Julia, an English hippy mother who in 1972 travels with her two young daughters, 7 and 5, to Morocco. There they have to adjust to the culture and people, and mum’s search for freedom and love involves exotic adventures, alienating her kids and a huge culture clash. The story is seen through the eyes of the youngest girl, Lucy (Carrie Mullan), who has plenty to say about her mother and her determined sister Bea (Bella Riza).

Based on the 1992 novel by Esther Freud, the slow-burning, shakily told, none too likeable story focuses on the late Sixties-early Seventies hippy attitudes and the contrasting African atmosphere. MacKinnon’s film is an uneasy, sometimes frustrating and even annoying entertainment, with time spent with characters doing infuriating things and making irritating decisions. But it still has its effective emotional highlights and points of considerable intelligent interest.

It’s a shame that the film somehow lacks warmth and doesn’t pull you onto its side or that of its characters, though it does reflect the time and place nicely. In the end, it might be quite diverting, possibly even quite fascinating, but neither its family story nor the central love story between Julia and Bilal (Saïd Taghmaoui) amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.

Billy MacKinnon adapts the novel, John de Borman provides the eye-catching cinematography and John Keane’s score impresses.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1694

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