Just Like a Woman

It’s a wispy movie that does not end so much as peter out, and it could have benefited from a little more humor and a little less heinous male behavior. Miller and Farahani, though — both sometimes used previously as decoration — give strong performances as women bonding over their delight in both movement and their own beauty.

Miller, who's still trying to find her way as an actress, isn't bad, and the Iranian-born Farahani is convincing, but their characters are blandly angelic, in stark contrast to the vast majority of men they encounter.

What might have proven an illuminating perspective on familiar issues disappoints as Bouchareb fails to turn his outsider’s point of view into new insights, and instead takes the easy route, falling back on familiar stereotypes in his tour of US misogyny and xenophobia.

Obvious parallels to "Thelma & Louise" do little to raise the dramatic stakes here.

Just like its meaningless title, Rachid Bouchareb’s disappointing drama evokes better works without developing any distinct identity of its own.

Bouchareb gives his actors room to roam, but you still get only skin-deep sketches instead of flesh-and-blood women.

A multicultural mini–Thelma and Louise but far duller than that description implies, Just Like a Woman peddles feminist empowerment with one-note didacticism.