In the Saudi mystery thriller Unidentified, we meet Nawal (Mila Al Zahrani), a recent divorcee, who is restarting her life with an entry-level job scanning files at a Riyadh police station. Addicted to a true crime podcast with makeup tips, Nawal is intrigued – and ultimately obsessed – by the discovery of a high school girl’s body in the desert. The girl has been killed, and nobody knows who she is. Because no one has reported a missing teenager, the cops assume that her family doesn’t want the case publicized, and so they don’t upset people by asking around. The mystery looks headed for the cold case files, but that’s not acceptable to Nawal, who embarks on an unauthorized investigation of her own.
Unidentified is the work of Saudi Arabia’s first female filmmaker, Haifaa Al Mansour, and Nawal is an nontraditional woman who has left her husband, lives by herself, drives a car, and refuses to kowtow to male authority. Nawal blows by male disapproval in a society where arranged marriages remain the norm and honor killings are not uncommon. Her investigation takes her inside the exclusive schools and gated compounds of the rich, to a hookah bar disco and across the endless sand dunes of the Saudi desert. Otherwise as uncovered as possible, Nawal dons a burqa for its advantages in tailing a possible witness.
Unidentified is a slow burn whodunit, until a shocker ending that I sure didn’t anticipate. The final twist is an utter gobsmacker.
Al Mansour previously directed Wadjda (2012), the Elle Fanning Mary Shelley (2018) and The Perfect Candidate (2019), also starring Al Zahrani. She’s also directed plenty of TV episodes, including Florida Man, City on Fire, Fear the Walking Dead and Bosch: Legacy. In Nawal, Al Mansour has constructed a character whose intimate familiarity with Saudi culture, much of which she rejects, helps her navigate rings around the police.
Unidentified opens in select theaters this weekend, including in LA at Laemmle’s Town Center 5, Royal, and Glendale.