Jinn is a vibrant debut for both its director and leading lady

AFI Fest Review: Jinn

Jinn is a beautiful showcase for director Nijla Mu’min and newcomer Zoe Renee, telling a story about mothers, daughter and belief.

When you live and breathe film you expect certain truisms to pop up: the final girl will always succeed, the prince and princess live happily ever after, and if two women are fighting in a domestic drama it’s usually over a man; mother/daughter dramas, especially, tend to revolve around a male presence, usually a new boyfriend. Not so with director Nijla Mu’min’s Jinn. Its title derives from the Arabic word for an intelligent spirit able to turn people good or evil. Jinn is a stirring tale of female autonomy and an exploration of religion from a perspective we don’t often see.

Summer (Zoe Renee) is a senior in high school who enjoys dancing with her friends and flirting with whoever she meets. She’s not a bad girl, but she is enmeshed in the world of hypersexualization we’ve come to expect from young women. Her dancing is provocative and she finds videos of pole dancing to be artistic. Her relationship with her newscaster single-mother, Jade (Simone Missick) appears to be fine, although Jade has become heavily involved in the local mosque. When she asks Summer to convert for her the two are placed on a path of clashing wills.

Again, when movies about mothers and daughters happen, they’re generally around a new boyfriend or another male figure. Jinn abandons that conceit, instead going for something grander than anything human. Jade is a woman trying to find herself. She’s gone through phases like this before, according to Summer’s father, but it’s different. Summer assumes Jade’s only interested in the imam running the mosque, but what comes to frighten her more is that maybe her mother genuinely likes this new religion.

And when I use the word “frightened,” I’m not talking of the religion itself. Mu’min, who also wrote the script, isn’t condemning the Muslim faith. Jade says there’s misinformation about it, and what the director shows us is a religion not too different from any Christian-based faith. Jade and Summer go to pray once a week, they have specific clothes they must wear, and, once Summer becomes embroiled in a scandal, there’s judgment from others condemning her to Hell. For Mu’min, it’s about destigmatizing while simultaneously demonstrating how hard it is for young women to identify with religion. Summer, who narrates the story as part of an essay on identity, talks about her love for the Muslim faith, but how she also wishes to cut her hijab into “ribbons” to become free.

Zoe Renee makes her film debut as Summer and is captivating. For Summer, Islam is tied to her relationship with her mother. She is guarded, particularly around her girlfriends who are out doing things she both seems to understand and hates. When she’s angry, she says things she doesn’t mean (or does she?). As Summer starts to become enmeshed in learning about being Muslim, Renee’s defensiveness is tinged with vulnerability. She loves this new thing, but is it changing her too much? Or was she always ready to change?

Iron Fist‘s Simone Missick is just as wonderful, playing a character who never devolves into a caricature of villainy. Jade is a woman who’s always been perceived by her identifiers — wife, mother, weathergirl. Being a Muslin allows her to sit back and just be herself. As Summer and her butt heads, their disagreements are influenced by the religion, but are still arguments any parent has had with their child — how they dress, the friends they hang out with.

For Mu’min, the question becomes is the audience judging Jade’s actions because she’s a Muslim? Would they judge her differently if she was a Christian? The fact that both actresses leave you sobbing by the end is a testament to their talents. As Summer recites a poem, her mother taking it in, it’s a moment of catharsis. Each actress illustrates the great love they have for each other, and at the end of the day, that’s a better faith than anything.

Jinn is an emotionally charged film of moving brilliance with a trio of women, both on-screen and off, you should keep your eye on. At times devastating, relatable, and authentically composed, Jinn presents a new side of religion we don’t often see.