El Ghawwas loses its focus
CAIRO: Once you get through the overused opening scene of the film, in which Amer Mounib and Hassan Hosny appear drunk in a club while trying to meet two Russian women, you start to think that there might be interesting ideas being discussed throughout the film.
But as it turns out, the ideas only sound appealing in theory. The lack of proper context and the disconnected scenes make watching “El Ghawwas (The Diver) a regrettable experience.
During the almost two-hour experience, there is no center to the story. Is it the title character Omar (Mounib), the relationship he has with his wife Malak (Dalia El Beheiry), or the family they both share?
Moreover, is it a drama? Is it a romance? It isn t clear. The story begins with a flashback of Omar and Malak s marriage, as their son Karim (Amr Abdel Halim) tells their story to a stranger. It s a basic boy-meets-girl story with an Egyptian dramatic twist.
Omar was a sports champ in free diving who lost his best friend while breaking the world record. When he retired, he married Malak. A combination of no work and his wife s aspirations for the return of the champion she first met results in problems. After a fight, he leaves, taking their baby son with him. She tries to find them with the help of a wealth client who is vocal about his feelings for her, but there is no trace.
Here ends the flashback and begins the film; or so I thought. The same style of the flashback, whose aim is to summarize a story not to narrate it, overshadows the rest of the film.
So instead of a flowing plotline, the film is basically excerpts of the characters lives, telling the viewers how they got to the starting point and ultimately how they got to the end.
With the lack of focus in the story and no specific center or theme, and the mediocre dialogue, the film becomes a series of disconnected scenes. Even the actors were distant from the characters they were playing, with the exception of a few well-performed scenes.
The only connecting thread, in fact, is the ridiculous excuses the film keeps offering for story development.
You would think that Malak would start her search with coastal cities, since her husband was a diver, or at his old friends places. But she doesn t even consider it; of course, this is exactly where Omar and Karim live: in the coastal city of Hurghada with his old friend Shams (Hosny). And this is exactly where they meet, by accident of course.
It s no surprise that viewers feel no sympathy or anything at all in fact, toward the characters. Omar is supposed to be the cruel character that draws people s sympathy at the end, especially when he reveals the true reason for his early retirement, but he fails. At one point, you could sympathize with Malak s plight but her passive attitude in confronting her problems leads you to the conclusion that she is not really angry.
Abdel Halim, however, made a noticeable contribution. Although the young actor needs a lot of training to polish his talent, he was the one that managed to get viewers interested.
As the closing credits start rolling, it is still not clear whether to blame director Fakhr El Din Negeida or scriptwriter Abdel Fattah El Beltagy for the end result.
