‘Unidentified’ Review: Haifaa al-Mansour’s Latest is Irresponsibly Terrible
Despite a committed performance from Mila Al-Zahrani, Haifaa al-Mansour’s Unidentified takes a rather irresponsible turn near its final five minutes, which sinks the entire proposition from the acclaimed Saudi filmmaker.
Ever watched a competently-made, but utterly unremarkable film that likely wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for a final twist so baffling that it derails the entire thing? This is what happens with Haifaa al-Mansour’s Unidentified, a detective thriller that attempts to uncover the perpetrator behind a grueling feminicide through a true crime junkie who has been waiting for the opportunity to make her mark within Saudi Arabia’s male-dominated police force.
A body has been discovered in the desert. Police station clerk Nawal Al Saffan (Mila Al-Zaharani) has been tasked with helping the detectives on duty because of her extensive knowledge of true crime. Nawal has recently lost a child and her husband. She seems very invested in this case for reasons that don’t seem entirely clear, as Mansour frequently cuts to the story’s present-day and fractured flashbacks that show a strained relationship between Nawal and her husband. However, once it clears itself up, the movie transforms itself from painfully boring to painfully dumb and downright irresponsible.
It’s going to be very difficult for this critic to talk about Unidentified without spoiling the sole element that completely tarnishes the film. This isn’t a twist you can brush off, because its Giallo-esque revelation has an effect on the entire narrative, repurposing everything you’ve seen into a painfully distasteful revenge story that might have worked in an 1980s soap opera, but not in a film made in the year of our lord 2026, especially one that treats on the very real and distressing subject of feminicides.
The best thing I can compare Unidentified to is a Tyler Perry drama, where the bulk of the movie is not particularly great, but not offensively terrible either. Then comes a succession of strange choices that tarnishes the whole of what you’ve seen, because none of the twists make any shred of legible narrative sense and require you to suspend your disbelief to insane territories that even the most relaxed film critics can’t. A flimsy opening scene can be saved by the rest of your movie being sturdily-crafted, but a terrible ending is unforgivable.
Sadly, even if the acting is somewhat competent and there are a few impressively-mounted one-takes, the only thing you think about after viewing Unidentified is its whimper of a conclusion. Beforehand, the thriller that’s constructed has no tangible quality, but is not something that people would likely quantify as “terrible,” “unacceptable” and “unwatchable.” It’s not particularly good – Nawal’s backstory is barely developed, and the bevy of flashback scenes that attempt to add texture to the protagonist don’t work – but it feels on the same level as Mansour’s last whimper, Mary Shelley.
It’s a shame that Mansour decided to give up all that tension and add a Saw-like twist that undoes all of the protagonist’s emotional journey. It’s even more a shame for Al-Zaharani, who, in her second collaboration with al-Mansour after 2019’s The Perfect Candidate, gives a rather impassioned performance as a woman who knows she deserves more than her current situation. There are a lot of subtle inflections in her performance that work well, especially during scenes where Nawal confronts potential suspects or thinks about her tragic past. We feel for her, especially as al-Mansour contrasts her current situation with her past one. These moments are effective at connecting the audience with a protagonist on the search for truth and in hoping that whatever will be on the other side of the investigation might provide clarity for Nawal on what matters the most in her life.
That’s why it feels so baffling that such texture would be undone by a twist that should’ve never made it past the first draft of the screenplay. Sure, if it weren’t for such a reveal, Unidentified would be a completely unremarkable film that would sit at the very bottom of al-Mansour’s filmography (Wadjda, this is not), but it wouldn’t be the radioactive piece of garbage it now is with the twist having made the final cut. Maybe the fact that I’ve based the entire thesis of this review on this sole twist might convince you to give this film a go, but there are more entertainingly terrible movies with baffling third-act reveals that warrant your attention before Unidentified. What precedes the last five minutes of this is so boring that you’ll forgive yourself for sitting through this slog only to see exactly what this “twist” is. Read the Wikipedia plot summary if you’re ever so curious about it, but don’t waste the precious time you have on this planet.