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‘The Little Sister’ Review: Hafsia Herzi Directs a Modest but Empathetic Coming-Out Tale
Nadia Melliti plays a French-Algerian struggling to reconcile her cultural identity with her emerging sexuality in Hafia Herzi's 'The Little Sister.'
Coming-out stories have long been weighted with expectations of trauma or tragedy, and the stakes in this one are high: Our heroine Fatima is a devout Muslim girl from an Algerian immigrant household in Paris, fearful that her nascent lesbianism will see her cast out of her family and faith. Sensitive and empathetic but a little timid in storytelling and style, “The Little Sister” rests considerably on its lead performance by first-time actor Nadia Melliti, an arresting presence who suggests Fatima’s vulnerabilities and insecurities from behind a withdrawn exterior — though the film can, at points, feel hemmed in by her emotional range. While Fatima remains a believer, her fear that Islam will reject her as a queer woman isn’t entirely assuaged by counsel from a local imam (Abdelali Mamoun) — who advises her, with a conflicted mixture of kindness and misogyny, that homosexuality is “not as serious” a sin in women as it is in men.
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