Summary
Layla Majnun does fool the audience into thinking everything is plain sailing — the majority of screen time shows a blossoming love, but audiences will eventually feel that anxiety.
This review of Indonesian Netflix film Layla Majnun contains no spoilers. The romance drama was released on the streaming service on February 11, 2021.
Films that involve forbidden love always bring on anxiety. Watching two characters slowly be consumed by each other but know that there is this irrefutable ending to their whirlwind romance. In cultures where arranged marriages are prevalent, the genuine love feels toxic — outsiders rely on the promise that a man and woman have given to each other. Layla Majnun plays on this concept well in that regard, bringing together two characters seeking the impossible.
The story follows Layla, an Indonesian scholar that visits Azerbaijan as a guest lecturer, and while there, falls for an admirer named Samir. The only issue is before she left for Azerbaijan, Layla made a promise to marry someone in an arranged format.
The majority of the film shows Layla enjoying the life of a new city, with a hesitant Samir showing the ropes, while also keeping the boundaries as a student. The intimacy is born from the respect Layla and Samir show each other — the director opts for nervous tentativeness between the characters, who truly do not understand the feelings they are harbouring. Audiences can sense that burning desire between them both, but the way the two leading actors portray their characters is wonderful — they do it in a way where they place a lingering doubt despite the obviousness between them.
Netflix’s Layla Majnun does suffer from a shaky script at times; however, I have to note whether the subtitling was not up to scratch — there were certain moments of dialogue that felt way too simplified, and sometimes the original language was followed by plain English, which further compounded the issue with the written text on the screen. Luckily, the acting pulls strings, with plenty of cute moments between the characters; there are scenes where they attempt to understand each other’s culture. The film relays to the audience how love can be built purely by communicating each other’s differences.
Indonesian film Layla Majnun does fool the audience into thinking everything is plain sailing — the majority of screen time shows a blossoming love, but audiences will eventually feel that anxiety; the same pressure when you leave a thrilling holiday and have to say goodbye. That feeling grows with each minute, making the final act rather frustrating to watch.
Netflix has thematically thrown the romantic films at us this week on the eve of Valentine’s Day — whether you’ll opt for Squared Love or To All the Boys: Always and Forever, maybe give a film with less mainstream coverage a chance — Layla Majnun may be the movie that fulfills your heart this weekend.
