The Title is 'Kallem Mama' but Everyone's Shouting

A movie about love and friendship with an overbearing mom

Good news! The whole thing is on YouTube. Bad news, no subtitles.

General Synopsis

The film follows Muna (played by Emmy winner Menna Shalaby) as she tries to get her mom’s approval for a marriage to best friend, Dalia’s (played by Mai Ezz Eldin), brother Sayed (played by Ghassan Matar). Her mother (played by Abla Kamel), affectionately called `Asaleiya (which is a type of candy), would like nothing more than Muna to listen to her advice and focus on her studies rather than the boy next door because she bickers constantly with Dalia and Sayed’s father (played by Hassan Hosny).

`Asaleiya’s main problem with Sayed is that he is a college dropout and she worries he can’t give Muna the life that she worked so hard to give her growing up and weigh Muna down. Muna works hard at bringing her friends together in various moneymaking schemes so that a wedding can take place and that Muna and Sayed can have a place to live by themselves. Throughout the movie we see Muna experience frustration at her mother always assuming she’s up to no good, Dalia having an easier time getting married, another friend, Basant (nicknamed Ghazala), fight for her friendships to her rich father who eventually comes around, and Nermeen (nicknamed Bakabozza) be a human punchline for being the fat friend without any sort of personal growth storyline on par with her friends. This includes her nickname.

This movie is emblematic of early 2000’s Egyptian cinema with overexposed lighting, frosty makeup, thin eyebrows and some truly bizarre fashion choices. This movie is for people who think shouting, fighting and random singing is funny. Don’t get me wrong, there were jokes and things about this movie that I liked. The main cast is amazing and they really work hard to give the script a dimension that it clearly didn’t have originally. Unfortunately this movie was not the sum of its parts. The whole thing screams low-budget because it was. At least there was a Mostafa ‘Amar cameo.

So it Sucked…

I’ve been tackling some pretty heavy subject matter for the past two months and it’s not been the best thing for my overall mood. So I decided to switch my brain off. It’s not a film with high aspirations or really anything much to say. If I’m being completely honest if these people existed in real life they would 100% be called bullies and no one would rightly root for them even though I loved how tight-knit the friend group was. But these types of personalities and scenarios are fun to play with for a few hours. I had a lot of fun watching Abla Kamel make an absolute meal out of the character and not let anyone outclass her acting ability. Muna might have big moments in the chicken coop but `Asaleiya was there to make her mark on it. It made me nostalgic for my upbringing and it’s kind of a time capsule for how the humor was back then. So when we look at instances of oddly placed and needless blackface, we can thank God that times have changed and we don’t have to make Mai Ezz Eldin do that anymore so she can pay her bills. No I’m not going to be providing a screenshot or a timestamp.

Kallem Mama is going to be relegated to a one time watch. It did what it needed to do which was be mind-numbing for ninety minutes.