‘Our Ties’ Review: A Brain Injury Affects the Whole Family in Roschdy Zem’s Well-Observed Dramedy
Jessica Kiang Of all the immediate familial relationships agonized over in the movies, it’s probably the bonds of siblinghood that remain the least explored. In his sixth film as director, French multihyphenate Roschdy Zem redresses that imbalance just a little, with the charming, unassuming but hardly inconsequential “Our Ties”: a heartfelt and beautifully played burst of bright chatter that doesn’t reinvent the wheel of the domestic drama, but does watch it turn with an unusually compassionate, affectionate eye. As it opens, Moussa (Sami Bouajila, winner of the 2019 Venice Horizons Best Actor award for Mehdi Barsaoui’s “A Son”) is in the middle of a crisis, not that you’d necessarily know it from the gently perplexed way he is handling his wife Nora’s sudden decision to end their relationship. Nora is in Morocco, where she spends a lot of her time for work, and Moussa, getting nothing but her voicemail, has finally come to the realization that she is serious about their split. Less angry than he is dazed, according to her wishes he packs up all her things, but is helpless to know what to do with them. His concerned, no-nonsense sister Samia (a note-perfect Meriem Serbah), the only one in whom he’s confided about the breakup, takes charge of giving the clothes and jewelry away.