Premise: Teenage soccer players in a refugee camp are invited to an elite soccer league camp where they hope to pursue their dreams of being professionals.
It's hard to talk about this movie without oversharing. You see, it's kind of a depressing movie, and i's main tactic is giving the characters hope then taking it away. Based on that and the premise, you can map out most of the movie already. That doesn't make the movie worse. It just may dull effect.
Fawdi and Mahmoud are 17- and 16-year-old soccer players who live in a refugee camp in Jordan. A Qatari soccer league comes by to pick the best players for a soccer camp. Initially, Mahmoud make it in but Fawdi doesn't make the cut because he's slightly too old. He eventually joins Mahmoud at the camp though. Compared to the slums they live in, Qatar is a paradise. They stay in a nice hotel. They play soccer on real grass. Their games are even televised. It's a taste of the good life. And there's the glimmer of hope that they could impress the owner or manager enough to get recruited to be a professional...Only, that doesn't really happen for refugees.
It's a sobering movie that captures the allure of the dream and the harsh truth of reality. It's a very short movie - only 1h13m - so it stays pretty bare bones. It covers a lot in that time, from Fawdi's family struggles and his disappointment when not selected initially, but there's definitely some room to flesh things out. If it was more about the actual sports, they could've easily added more game and practice footage. It's a satisfying film though and a clever way to have a discussion about refugees in a way that I haven't seen dozens of times before.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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