Sundance 2025 Review: Brides – “The filmmakers create empathy while exploring the reasons for their decisions.”

Safiyya Ingar and Ebada Hassan appear in Brides by Nadia Fall, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Neon Films/Rosamont
Two teenagers sit in an airport, sharing a milkshake and scarfing fries. They look slightly older than their fifteen years, perhaps somewhat due to their experiences forcing them to grow up sooner than they should. While their adolescence has had abuse and racism at its core, their own misguided decisions are about to send them down a dangerous path that will change the course of their lives. Because this trip they are about to take isn’t for a school exchange program nor a weekend away. Brides is not that type of ‘road trip’ movie. These young women are headed to Syria.
Check out all of our Sundance coverageFirst-time filmmaker Nadia Fall, currently artistic director at the Young Vic Theatre in London, is no stranger to exploring the experiences of young people. Working from a screenplay by Suhayla El-Bushra, the pair were inspired by a news story about three teenaged schoolgirls from London who left home to become ISIS brides. The media at the time, didn’t seem interested in truly understanding these young women. Instead of vilifying their characters, Doe (played by newcomer Ebada Hassan) and Muna (a spirited and compelling Safiyya Ingar), the filmmakers create empathy while exploring the reasons for their decisions. Perhaps with even more emphasis, Brides examines the strength and complexity of the bond shared by these two teenage girls.“It’s lentils and rice after this,” says Muna as they enjoy their airport feast, and the two girls embark on their long journey. They are meant to meet a guide in the airport in Istanbul, someone arranged via a contact from social media whose posts boast about the community and camaraderie her new life in Syria awarded her. They’re told to buy roundtrip tickets from Istanbul so as not to arouse suspicion, act like tourists, and whatever they do don’t contact their family until they reach the Syrian border.
You’d think that the guide not arriving to get them at the airport might have given them pause, or the fact that their money and passports get taken from them while they shop in Turkey. One of them postulates that maybe it is “Allah’s way of telling them to go home.” But, these two girls made a pact, and neither of them is going to bail now.
Their journey leads them to encounter many different types of people, including a kind lady at a counter selling bus tickets who offers them a place to stay. When thanked, she simply says it’s what anyone would do. “Any Muslim,” retorts Doe, who hasn’t seen much kindness from others. “Anybody,” the lady says, correcting her. They see men in a bar treating the surrounding women poorly and comment about how they can’t wait to get to Syria where they won’t be treated that way. It’s 2014, and the posts they see on social media, while making them aware of the atrocities taking place in Syria have also painted a fairy tale of what awaits them.
Fall gives us small glimpses into the girls’ lives before their departure as the movie progresses, with varying effect. These flashbacks can be disorienting until we’re able to piece more information together. In these glimpses, we discover a subplot involving a young man Doe has a crush on named Samir, who also becomes radicalized and goes to Syria. However, this thread is markedly underdeveloped and unnecessary, even if it highlights that women are not the only targets of online groomers. We eventually find out enough about these teens to at least begin to understand their motivation without a ‘girl chasing guy’ trope.
In the film’s first part, we learn mostly about Doe, sadly having to wait for more of Muna’s backstory until much later. The anti-Muslim sentiment and flat-out racism the girls have had to endure at their London school and neighbourhood is appalling and devastating. No wonder they don’t feel as if they are welcome in their own home, alienated from their peers and even their own families. Through social media posts, the girls have been told they’ll be greeted with smiles and hugs, feel the warmth of belonging from their Muslim sisters. You can begin to understand their decisions, no matter how bad. These girls are not villainous, they are not stupid. They are naive about the world sure, but no more so than any other teen who feels that sense of invincibility.
Brides, though obviously inspired by those aforementioned stories of online radicalization is, at its core, about two teens and their unbreakable friendship. Their relationship goes through ebbs and flows to be sure, as their resolve during many risky situations also wavers. As much as the audience will yearn for these young women to turn back, we know that they will not. Their destination has been made out to be a utopia where they will be able to be themselves without judgement. Those who have not stood in their shoes will never fully comprehend, but Fall and El-Bushra make certain we can at least feel connected to Doe and Muna, humanizing these young women and their dangerous and unconventional decisions.
Brides premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on January 24th. It continues to have screenings through to February 2nd and for those in the U.S. is available to stream online starting January 30th. For more information head to the Sundance website
Previous PostNext Post