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| Images courtesy of Cleopatra Entertainment |
Italian writer-director-actress Ilaria
Borrelli who started film directing in the early 2000s with Our Italian
Husband and A Girl from the Brothel which she also prominently
featured in is an award winning independent female filmmaker who took a hiatus
after her 2012 drama until around 2024 following the COVID-19 outbreak. Her latest venture, a 2023 Egyptian set bilingual
Arabic-English feminist drama The Goat, joins her other feminist
pictures in portraying the ongoing plight of arranged marriages in the Middle
East. Though it at times seems to cut
corners in dramatizing some of the more disturbing elements of the story
including a factory machine death sequence that doesn’t really pay off like it
should with a sadly underutilized international cast joined by Mira Sorvino and
John Savage, for the most part this scope 2.35:1 widescreen effort is filled
with lots of scenic beauty and feminine physical endurances which should speak
volumes to the problem of forced marriages in Egypt.
With Egyptian TikTok star Jessica Hosam
in the lead, she plays an 11-year-old orphan named Hadya who is pushed into a
forced marriage by an elderly man who also murders her father. Soon an American company intending on
controlling the water sources in the area and selling bottled waters
spearheaded by the scummy CEO Julian Brown (John Savage) and company engineer
Anna Beckering (Mira Sorvino) zero in on Hadya who turns out to be the only
surviving family member left who can authorize for the American workers to
begin drilling. Desperate to escape the
clutches of her “husband” and armed with a little goat she begins a brutal
sojourn across the desert barefoot, broke and starving. However it would seem not only is this little
goat something of a miracle worker as food and amenities begin appearing conveniently
but at one point the goat takes on the voice of Hadya’s mother who urges her to
press on and not give up or into pressure.
Soon, as Anna and her children drive across the desert looking for
Hadya, her own prior stance on the company’s bottom line begins to change when
she catches wind of Hadya’s ongoing ordeal.
Lush and beautiful with many barren
vistas of the desert landscape, a striking image of the little girl looking up
at a rock formation with the goat standing on top of it, The Goat is
well intentioned but also somehow feels like it’s not really taking the bull by
the horns, so to speak. Early on, there’s
an overt allusion to gang rape committed against the girl by the elder who is
also in illicit cahoots with the company CEO Julian Brown who himself may be
just as violent and murderous. Mira
Sorvino is good but her character is underdeveloped, as is John Savages who isn’t
given a whole lot to do here but squint and scowl. Knowing just how good Savage was at
portraying madness in The Deer Hunter and The Thin Red Line, his
part here felt like a waste of talent. Jessica
Hosam as the central protagonist is good and is tasked with wading through the
scalding hot desert grounds barefoot with emphasis on how the elements are
working against her stamina. Sayed Ragab
takes on the role most other actors would turn down as an aged domineering
rapist though a confrontation near the end between himself and John Savage felt
curiously anticlimactic when it should’ve landed like a gavel.
Made for around $3 million and unveiled
in limited release, the Egyptian shot The Goat looks and sounds fine
with scope photography by Driven cameraman and Brother 2 sound
man David Vlasits with many wide angled images of the desert that will remind
some viewers here and there of Lawrence of Arabia. Picked up by Cleopatra Entertainment for DVD
release in 2026, The Goat is a well-intentioned effort that tragically
comes off as uneven with some scenes hitting heavily while others barely
register. The lead TikTok star is good
in the part in a physically demanding role but the generally stronger supporting
performers aren’t given a whole lot to work with and narrative payoffs don’t
land the way they should. There’s a
decent movie in here but it cuts too many corners in its rush to the finish
line. Worth a rental perhaps.
--Andrew Kotwicki
