Critic Reviews

The feisty restlessness of Agathe Riedinger’s impressive feature debut belies the profound sadness of its central theme – that for many young women, beauty and pain are one and the same.

After all the despair, the piling up of glitzy delusion, there’s a feeling of redemption to it connected to what a good movie can do.

Wild Diamond operates in both the very new wave of movies incorporating the ubiquitous presence of TikTok and the decades-old subgenre of class commentary.

Wild Diamonds is a character study both of Liane and of the culture that has spawned her, and a film that manages to be both empathetic and unforgiving. It won’t make you think she’s making smart choices, but you’ll understand why she’s making bad ones.

Wild Diamond doesn’t judge or look down on its main character and doesn’t try to control how we view her. This is a welcome rarity.

Khebizi brings palpable desperation to the role of Liane, despite the limited script, while the cinematographer Noé Bach intimately frames Liane like we’re intruding on her space.

The screenplay itself fails to get inside Liane’s head as much as Khebizi and the film’s visual style do. You leave feeling like you only scratched the surface of who Liane is. You want more for her as much as she wants more from her small life.

The film is at its best when it’s keyed to its main character’s breakneck energy.

Khebizi gives a heartfelt performance.

Wild Diamond features gorgeous and frank observations about influencer culture, but it struggles to assert itself narratively.