CAIRO - A film about a confused character can set the scene for a decent slapstick comedy, or a great subtle-humor comedy. Even letting the audience be confused as well might be part of the fun, but it seems that the most confused person in Ahmed Hilmy's new film Bolbol Hayran - “A Confused Bolbol”, which is both the protagonist's nickname, and also means “nightingale” in reference to his whistling - is the film's writer Khaled Diab. The film tells the story of Bolbol, played by Hilmy, an interior designer who owns his own firm. We first meet the character at a hospital, where he is in body cast and being assisted by a female doctor named Amal, played by Emmy Samir Ghanem (who dropped the ‘Samir Ghanem' from the credits this time). This is pretty much the framing device for the film; we don't know how Bolbol ended up in the hospital, and so the film unfolds as Bolbol telling Amal how he got into that body cast. His story involves two important girls in his life. The first is Yasmine, played by Zeina , a harmonica player who he meets and instantly takes liking to. After a little resistance from her, they end up going out, and later they become engaged. Then he meets Hala, played by Shery Adel (who also went by Shery only for this film). Soon afterwards, he finds out how controlling and independent Yasmine is, especially when compared to the quiet, obedient Hala. So he leaves Yasmine for Hala, and the second act starts which involves amnesia, trying to make Bolbol crazy, and yet another contrived, predicable, romantic comedy film. The film has a great cast, who all give joyful performances. Hilmy was grand as usual, and the ladies worked well with what they were given. Unfortunately, the female role was underwritten, but it's becoming exhausting to talk about how underwritten females roles are in Cinema, Egyptian or otherwise, but more so in Egyptian cinema (I digress). The point is that the cast wasn't the problem, nor was it really the directing, done here by Khaled Marie, who seems to have worked as well as he could. On the other hand, the screenplay was confused as to which direction to take, and by its second act, it kept on taking more ideas, many of which could have evolved into their own movies. This is true as well as for the humour; most of the humour which was sprinkled over the story was for cheap laughs. Most of the jokes really had nothing to do with the plot; they didn't come from any “real” or “true inner source” of these characters, and it would actually have been an interesting experiment if someone would re-edit the film to take these jokes out, and see if it actually ends up being a really entertaining dark comedy. Although there was one long-running successful joke about Bolbol's need to have a hand-rolled cigarette, but can't actually do it because his hands are broken, so the task is left for Dr Amal who never seem to manage to do it right. The film had another sub-plot that, honestly, if you blink twice in a row you will miss it, no joke. It involves Amal's apparent confusion about two men and she doesn't know which one to choose, apparently as a sort of reflection on Bolbol's main storyline. Unfortunately, this “subplot” ends up being little more than a throwaway gag, which is never really developed or even concluded. What was the need for this storyline, especially if it was not going to evolve or even be told right? Hilmy's character was also very unlikable one; he's completely self-involved and a coward. He keeps saying he is superman and he wants supergirl, but he wasn't a hero at all. He sorts of admits at the end that he isn't superman, but he admits it for the wrong reasons; he's not a hero, he's actually a big jerk in regards to what he does and how he treats these girls. There's nothing wrong with having unsympathetic main characters in your film, but this is a delicate task to pull off correctly and the film makes it rather clear that we're supposed to sympathise with the “charming” Bolbol, meaning that the character is just generally unpleasant, and you end up feeling like he deserves everything he gets for being such an idiot. Concerning the second part of the film, it's not really a matter of where the writer didn't take the plot, but rather why it was taken in such a sitcom-esque, amateurish way. However, that's where this plot feels like it came from: a sitcom. The ending felt banal and unresolved; it was also kind of anti-feminist, since it seems like we're being told that the women should have just changed their behaviour to Bolbol's needs, rather than him attempting to resolve his issues with them. The whole ending of the film was done so rapidly that it feels like the actors were given their lines moments before the director yelled “action!” which shows us more of how ill-timed the pacing for the film was. This is Ahmed Hilmy's second film this year; his last film, Asal Iswid (Black Honey), also had the same writerdirector team as was used for this film. In that film, the writer had a real plot; there were more situations that fill out the film. In Bolbol Hayran, I'm not sure he has the chops to make an intelligent comedy, because this is one just fluff. Perhaps Hilmy just wanted to rush to have the film released by the holidays, and perhaps that's what hurt the film, or perhaps this how good it get; but either way, it's not good enough.
