‘Exodus’ (2023) Review: A Harrowing Story with Questionable Morals
Abbe Hassan’s Exodus follows the Syrian Refugee Crisis during the 2010s, a very serious and heartbreaking subject. The film shows the experiences of the many families and children who were affected by being displaced from their homes. Exodus is an important and relevant movie depicting the horrendous conditions under which Syrian refugees struggle to survive. It follows a friendship between a professional smuggler and a young girl as she tries to adapt to her situation and finds her family. Hassan’s feature directorial debut is engaging; however, it shows an easy-going road trip that undermines the much-needed emotional impact of the subject matter.
Exodus begins when a storage container full of refugees arrives at the Türkish port. Amal (Jwan Alqatami), a 12-year-old girl, walks out of the container alone without her parents. At the same location, a professional smuggler, Sam (Ashraf Barhom) waits for his storage container to arrive. As Alam asks Sam for help, the police arrive. Sam runs out of the port before he gets arrested by the police, and Alam follows him. Karim (Isa Aouifia), Sam’s business partner, suggests that he should flee Türkey and head to Greece before the police capture him. Unable to find her parents, Alam is forced to put her life in a complete stranger’s hands to find her family and go to Sweden. Sam and Alam travel across Türkey and make the perilous journey through the Mediterranean Sea on a small boat. When they arrive in Greece, they find themselves in difficult circumstances to survive and take the young girl safely back to her family.
Exodus begins with political undertones that set the seriousness of the subject: human beings are transported in a container to escape the Syrian war. However, as the story progresses, it becomes an easy-going road trip for Sam and Alam with humorous laughter. Even when it manages to find some emotional and thematic moments, the tone changes abruptly.
Moreover, the relationship between Sam and Alam isn’t solid because of the power balance. It’s absurd to watch someone with authority. Sam is not a character who is meant to be trusted, but his entire redemption arc revolves around getting Alam to Sweden. On countless occasions, he leaves her behind for selfish reasons but in the end, he is forced to help her. In one scene, Sam abandons Alam at a refugee centre, promising that her parents will arrive to fetch her. As he leaves the compound without telling the young girl, he sees police arrive to arrest the refugees. Without any other choice, he returns to find Alam and rescue her. In these moments, Sam finds himself conflicted about helping Alam. Even when he is hesitant, he knows that he has a ‘moral’ duty to return Alam to her family. It’s never clear if he’s helping her because he feels guilty about being responsible for her parent’s death, or if he’s smuggling people for only one purpose: money. Sam’s arc indicates that he’s not entirely remorseful of what he’s doing, and the emotional gut-punch moment of the final scene ends with a forceful redemption arc. It’s clear that he wants to make things right by being honest to Alam, but characters like Sam, who make morally questionable decisions are not meant to be shown as ‘good people.’
Regardless, even when Exodus has abrupt tone changes and an imbalanced redemption arc, the movie brings these unnecessary story devices and features one of the most harrowing moments. For a movie that depicts these dark themes, it focuses on a wholesome road trip. While the story has intense scenes, the constant back and forth of Sam and Alam’s relationship with their dangerous reality might confuse the viewer. A moment in the refugee crisis that shook the world was when Alan Kurdi’s body washed ashore on the beaches of Türkey after a boat carrying refugees sank off the coast. In the movie, a group of refugees try to survive the perilous journey, in a small boat which is slowly sinking in the middle of a stormy ocean. This is, perhaps, the most emotional part of the movie that depicts the darkness of the refugee crisis. It’s not completely necessary to depict the dangerous situations of refugees’ experiences in a dark manner, but the way this movie shows it is puzzling. Last year, Netflix released a movie that follows a similar story of two Syrian refugees, who swim in the Mediterranean seas for hours to reach Greece. Sally El Hosaini’s The Swimmers depicts the perilous journey with empathy and tense moments as the two teenagers try to navigate their lives in a whole new country. There’s no need for movies of this subject matter to be dark all the time, but the tone changes of Exodus are a distracting decision that lacks the emotional journey of these characters.
Exodus struggles to depict the heartbreaking realities of the subjects, which is a wasted opportunity for a film that touches on dark moments. It feels too polished and focuses on the budding relationship between a smuggler and a young girl without adding the horror and nightmare needed to show the gravity of the refugee crisis and the human cost of smuggling people. Hassan attempts to show that even smugglers, like Sam, are humans and they make mistakes but the approach here doesn’t feel worthy of the kind of redemption it was hoping for. Exodus is a human story, but it doesn’t have the emotional depth to leave a mark on the viewer.
