Fares Fares’ hostage thriller has a simple premise, but unexpected depth DUBAI: Swedish-Lebanese actor Fares Fares makes his directorial debut with this hostage thriller, which he also co-wrote. He has made a gripping, well-paced drama that keeps you engaged throughout. For the latest updates, follow us on Instagram @arabnews.lifestyle It begins with Artan (Alexej Manvalov) entering a clinic and demanding to see Louise (Alma Poysti), his estranged wife who works as a nurse there. He’s told he’ll have to wait, as Louise is busy with a patient. At which point he pulls out a gun. From there, the situation spirals rapidly, until local cop Lukas (Fares) enters and persuades Artan to let everyone else (except Louise, who has Artan’s gun at her head) leave. Eventually, the three of them get into a car, with Lukas driving and Louise still at gunpoint, to head to Louise’s parents, where her and Artan’s baby daughter is. Artan, we learn, recently served time in prison for assault. The rest of the film takes place largely in the car, apart from a stop at the house. While the film is billed is a thriller, it’s also an engaging exploration of family dynamics, power, bigotry, and of love gone bad. The initial impression given of Artan (immigrant, terrorist, history of violence) is dismantled, even while he is now busy acting in a way that ensures he will be forever seen as that very stereotype. The heart of the film is the relationship between world-weary Lukas and Artan. Lukas is a good-but-flawed man who shows true empathy for Artan, and Manvalov’s portrayal of the latter’s slow-dawning realization of what his actions will mean for his future is both convincing and genuinely moving. But “A Day And A Half” is not without its faults. While Poysti does a solid job with the material she’s given, that material is generally shallow, consisting mostly of sobbing and apologizing. Her mother, meanwhile, is laughably one-dimensional, clunkily inserted to give context to Louise’s history of mental illness. And the final shot, in particular, is a peculiar choice. We can’t describe it without spoilers, but it was (to this reviewer, anyway) tonally jarring — suited more to a Seventies cop-based comedy than to the bleak 90 minutes or so that precedes it. Overall, though, “A Day And A Half” has unexpected depth and some true edge-of-the-seat moments as we wonder just how far Artan will be driven to go.