Turning Points: Three Movies Centering on Young Women

“First Match,” a Netflix Original movie that made its debut March 30, begins with near-surreal imagery: a shot of a blue sky with a fluffy cloud suspended therein, into which a swatch of green flies in slow motion. Other patches of color come into the frame, items of casual clothing — a tank top, sweatpants and so on. The movie quickly gets down to earth once the viewer has figured out what the objects are. On the sidewalk, a teenage girl yells up to a window at the woman throwing the clothes from a high floor of an urban housing project. The exchange is too profane to be quoted here, but it’s clear that the combatants are mother and daughter, and that their fight is about a man. The girl, indignant, gathers up the clothes and stalks away; there’s a genuine truculence in her step.

In the next scene the viewer learns that the mother’s accusations are true. The girl, Monique, is romantically involved with her mother’s partner. Monique also has a foster home, and she filches jewelry from her guardian there.

“First Match” is the first feature film from the writer-director Olivia Newman, and it’s noteworthy in several respects — the first being that it does not do much from the outset to make its central character, played with vivid ferocity by Elvire Emanuelle, conventionally likable. The viewer grows to understand and root for her, but it takes some time.

Monique, or “Mo,” has an absent father whom she idolizes. Back in the day he was a school wrestling star, and a composition book containing his clippings and journal entries seems to be the only thing in the world Monique cherishes. The wrestling coach at her high school suggests the sport as an outlet for her anger, and the team members, all boys, offer few objections. But Mo begins to take the notion seriously only when she encounters her father in her Brooklyn neighborhood (the movie is set in and was shot in Brownsville).

She doesn’t dwell on the fact that he hadn’t even let her know he was out of prison; instead she starts inviting him to wrestling matches. They renew their bond, and Mo begins to excel. Her dad, Darrel, at first relating to his daughter from a befuddled remove, begins to show interest and helps her train. But his intentions take an ugly turn.

Emanuelle’s performance as Mo is certainly spectacular, but I don’t think I’ve seen better screen acting in 2018 than Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s work as Darrel. When he first encounters Mo he’s in a woozy daze, carrying out the trash from a takeout place where he’s minimally employed, a near-hopeless figure, eyes darting this way and that. As the character begins to pull himself together, he faces forward and displays charisma and strength. It’s heartbreaking and infuriating when Darrel takes his new confidence and uses it in the service of selfish, seductive deceit.

You can’t stop watching Abdul-Mateen, even when his character is most repellent.

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“Layla M.,” a 2016 Dutch picture that debuted as a Netflix Original on March 23, begins with a soccer match at which the title character, a teen played by Nora El Koussour, gets into a heated disagreement with some of the male players.

The first impression the character gives is one of healthy feistiness, but Layla is, as it happens, profoundly alienated. That alienation leads her into a more serious immersion in Islam, and some political awareness. Chastised by her father, who brought the family from Morocco to the Netherlands, for participating in an online protest, Layla shoots back with a reference to Geert Wilders, the right-wing, anti-Islam politician. “It starts with a burqa ban, it ends with Wilders as prime minister,” she says.

Adopting a strict mode of dress in her home, she’s mocked (“Take off that potato sack”). She joins a new group of friends she considers activists for freedom of religion, calling them “the brothers and sisters I feel safe and happy with.” She takes up romantically with Abdel, a soft-spoken scholarly type who marries her and whisks her off to Amman, Jordan, where she finds herself unwittingly oppressed by the patriarchy she had hoped she was escaping.

Co-written and directed by Mijke de Jong, who has explored the worlds of disaffected young women in works like"Katia’s Sister” (2008), “Layla M.” is an involving film that depicts “radicalization” from a humanist angle while applying proper consideration to the political and cultural currents from which such transformations stem. The viewer understands the ways in which Layla is playing with fire, and the writer uses her story to argue in favor of compassionate repatriation for young individuals who made choices they came to regret.

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“Ladies First” is a Netflix Original documentary that had its premiere March 8. It opens at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Unless we are versed in the statistics of that event to begin with, we will assume that the story it is about to tell, about India’s archery prodigy, Deepika Kumari, will culminate in gold medal triumph.

Not exactly. Directed by Uraaz Bahl and produced by his wife, Shaana Levy-Bahl, “Ladies First” tells a tale that is indeed incredible and inspiring. Kumari, as it happens, is living a dream she did not even know she had. Born in one of the poorest provinces of her country, she had an early enthusiasm for hitting targets, often with handmade equipment, but was more concerned with trying to help her family eat than pursuing a sports career. Once she realized she could help her family by chasing this ambition, she soared from student to champion with dazzling speed.

But “Ladies First” becomes a chronicle of how Kumari suffered because of a lack of institutional support for her talents. The movie notes that across a range of developing countries (including India) with a total population of 3.1 billion, none has produced a female Olympic gold medalist.

Kumari is a terrifically appealing heroine for this story, and “Ladies First” ends on a hopeful note, with this athlete training for the 2020 Olympics with the help of a newly formed institute that will give her more structured training and coaching.