Ali's Wedding

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details of classification and consumer advice lines for Ali's Wedding
• a review of Ali's Wedding completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 5 September 2017.

Overall comments and recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• use of violence
• material that may scare or disturb children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie’s message

A synopsis of the story

The film’s opening scene depicts Ali (Osamah Sami), dressed for a wedding, driving a tractor across a field while being pursued by the police. The pursuit ends with Ali leaping from the tractor just before it crashes into a police car. 

The film then portrays Ali’s childhood as a series of flashbacks in which we learn that Ali and his family were Iraqi refugees who escaped into Iran where they suffered abuse and tragedy until they migrated to Australia. The film then skips to the present day, but sometime before the film’s opening scene.

Ali, the oldest son of Mahdi (Don Hany), a Muslim cleric, has had a lifelong dream, or at least his family has, of Ali becoming a doctor. When Ali fails to do well enough, he lies and tells them that he has been accepted into medical school.

Ali’s life becomes even more complicated, requiring even more lies when he falls in love with Dianne (Helena Sawires). Dianne is an Australian-born Muslim of Lebanese decent, who is seen by Ali’s mother Zahra (Frances Duca) as totally unsuitable. Ali’s family organises an arranged marriage, resulting in Ali becoming engaged to Yomna (Maha Wilson). But Ali loves Dianne and temporarily marries her without telling her that he is engaged to Yomna.

Eventually Ali’s lies catch up with him and his life falls apart, but Ali refuses to give up.

Families; relationships; cultural norms; refugees

There is some violence in this movie, some played for comedy and some more scary, including:

• In a comical scene we see two teenage girls (on the other side of a glass window) arguing and then slapping each other.  
• An Australian Iraqi man who travels to America is falsely accused of planning terrorist acts when airport security find text messages on his phone related to “The Bombers”, the man’s favourite Australian football team. The man is handcuffed while being interrogated by police
• In one scene several soldiers point their guns at the head of a civilian, then push him to the ground and strike him in the head. When we next see the man he has open bloody cuts to his head, face and body with blood running down the side of his face.
• In one scene a boy walking with his younger brother steps on a land mine. Aware of what he has just done, he sends his younger brother on, and as the younger brother walks away there is the sound of an explosion and see smoke rising in the background; the inference is clear.    
• In one scene an emotionally distressed young woman cries and shouts at a young man, telling him that she hates him and saying that she divorces him a thousand times.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Children in this age group are likely to be distressed by the above-mentioned scenes and also by some scenes of accidental harm such as the tractor crashing into the police car and Ali flying through the air.

Children in this age group are also likely to be disturbed by some of the violent scenes described above

Children in this age group may also be disturbed by some of the violent scenes described above

Younger children in this group may be upset by the death of the boy who steps on a landmine.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

• fast foods; confectionery; Australian and European cars

Sexual references

The film contains overt and covert sexual references and innuendo scattered throughout.  Examples include:

• In one comical scene we see several young Iraqi boys looking through a hole in the wall at several young Muslim girls clothed and robed from head to foot. One of the young girls spots one of the boys and opens her robe to reveal her clothing beneath. The young boy then telling his friends that the girl “Flashed” him.
• Throughout the film we hear a number of references made to an older man having 72 wives.
• A young man says that he is married and that the sex is unbelievable. He then goes on to say, “My wife reckons I’m getting the hang of it”.
• An older man refer to young men as being “horny boys”.
• During a mock doctor’s appointment a woman tells a student doctor that she was having really weird discharges with the student going on to ask her if she saw it first or smelt it.
• A young Muslim couple sit next to each other and the woman says “This is as much as we can ever do”.
• An older man say to a second man “let hands wander as long as seed is not spilled”
• A man talks about having 1300 temporary marriages, some which lasted a few hours,  some a few days and sometimes the time you spend in a taxi.
• A young man sings a sexually explicit song
• A man refers to a woman as a “dog” and says that she has nice “boobs”

Nudity and sexual activity

• there is some kissing

Use of substances

• men smoke cigarettes

Coarse language

The film contains coarse language and name-calling scattered throughout the film. Examples include:

• fuck; shit (both used many times); dick-head; bastards; goddamn; bloody.
• stupid, idiot, crazy (used more than once), bludgers, useless.  

In a nutshell

Ali’s Wedding is a feel-good Australian comedy romance targeting older adolescents and adults. The film has a genuine warmth and cultural authenticity about it and is likely to be enjoyed by the target audience. The film raises some interesting and current issues to discuss with older teens, but is not recommended for under 15s due to some violent scenes, sexual references and coarse language.

The main messages from this movie are:

• If you lie, it can come back to haunt you with unexpected and possibly damaging consequences. 
• A parent’s love for their children is unconditional.
• We have to stop blaming others for our own mistakes.  

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

• Determination and persistence as shown by Ali.
• Selflessness: A young boy sacrifices his life to save his younger brother.