“Ex-Wife”: A fun comedy with a stumbling script | Art

Since its release, the movie “X-Wife” has been competing for the top spot at the box office during the summer season, with the movie “Welad Rizk: The Judge” continuing to be shown during the Eid Al-Adha movie season, and in the absence of any new Arab movies, while the movie “Deadpool & Wolverine” attracts other categories of viewers who are more inclined towards international cinema.

“Ex-Wife” is directed by Moataz El-Tony, written by Karim Sami and Ahmed Abdel Wahab, and starring Hesham Maged, Amina Khalil and Mohamed Mamdouh. It is a comedy.

The movie “Ex-Wife” begins with the psychiatrist Youssef (Hesham Maged), who provides counseling to prisoners, in addition to his work in his clinic. During one of these consultations, he meets Taha (Mohamed Mamdouh), the prisoner who is about to be released due to his good conduct and behavior despite his long criminal history full of violence.

An unbalanced friendship develops between the two characters, after which Youssef discovers that his wife Sahar (Amina Khalil) was Taha's ex-wife before she separated from him after his imprisonment.

Youssef gets involved with Taha day after day, as he fears that the latter will discover the truth about his relationship with Sahar. The funny contradiction between the two characters appears, one of them is a polite and successful doctor from an aristocratic family, and the other is a criminal and ex-convict who wants revenge on the person who married his ex-wife without knowing that he is only a few steps away from him.

It is normal for successful cinematic duos to appear, but it is not normal for two actors to present the same roles together in another film that was shown months ago. This is exactly what happened with both Amina Khalil and Mohamed Mamdouh, as they present in “X Marati” almost the same roles in the film “Sheqo” that was shown during the Eid al-Fitr season.

We are talking here about a large area of ​​similarity between the roles to the point that it gives the impression that we are watching a second part of “Sheko” that completes the sub-story of both Fatna and Hijazi, which will be more exciting than the case of “deja vu” or “seen before” that dominates the events of “X-Wife”, and thus the actors’ approval here of these two roles has many question marks.

The second question mark is the choice of Amina Khalil for this role in the first place. The young actress is famous for her roles as an aristocratic girl, which she is very good at. She herself went on social media announcing her great effort to play the role of Fatna in “Sheqo”, an effort that did not appear in the film except in terms of appearance, as her performance was largely contrived, which was repeated in “Ex-Wife” in the role of the wife Sahar, who has popular origins and who falsified her history to marry the doctor Youssef, but his money could not erase her crude way of speaking.

In fact, Amina Khalil does not have the necessary comedic sense for this role, so she resorted to a loud voice and exaggerated facial and body expressions to compensate for this lack, which is the approach she adopted in “Shako”, so her performance became a severe weakness in both films.

Excellent sense of comedy and weak script

On the other hand, we find another cinematic duo in “X-Wife” represented by the long partnership between its star Hesham Maged and director Moataz El-Tony. The real beginning of each of their careers was in 2010 in the film “Sameer, Shahir and Baheer”, in addition to the series “The Game” in its four parts. However, here we are faced with a renewed duo capable of attracting viewers even if the work is marred by some technical flaws.

Moataz El Tony has a distinct sense of comedy. Even in his average works, he is able to create comic paradoxes that viewers remember for years after they are shown. This is repeated in “Ex-Wife”, as we find many funny, smart, and uncontrived scenes, thanks to the cast of actors in the secondary roles who presented few but very good scenes, such as Ali Sobhi, Khaled Kamal, Alfat Emam, Hamza El Eili, and Emad Rashad.

On the other hand, the film had two weaknesses that are difficult to overlook. The first is that the plot relies mainly on illogical coincidences, such as Taha and Youssef meeting in prison and the relationship that brings them together before the latter finds out that he is his wife’s ex-husband, a coincidence that could have been replaced by any other logical reason in a way that makes the film’s scenario more credible and smooth.

The second flaw is the dramatic scenes and moral preaching that are far from the context of the film. In the last third of the film, the focus shifts to the conflict over the child that Sahar gave birth to from Taha before he went to prison. The latter demands his presence in his son’s life, while the mother refuses because he might become a stigma that prevents him from integrating with his new society that Youssef has brought him into.

These confrontations between Sahar and Taha highlighted the flaws of the script, which included building incoherent characters that only presented one side, whether good or evil, while at the same time putting speeches in their mouths that were inappropriate for their culture.

Preaching speeches are no longer necessary in movies, whether comedies or otherwise. This is a fact that the current generation of filmmakers must acknowledge, and it will relieve them of the burden of inserting unjustified moral messages into their films in a way that harms them.

The movie “Ex-Wife” is entertaining and enjoyable, and has very well-constructed comedic scenes, especially with the performances of Hesham Maged, Mohamed Mamdouh, and the actors in the small roles, which are very good. However, like many modern Egyptian movies, it was marred by a confused script that did not build a strong foundation for its plot.