Yomeddine

As a cinematic experience, Yomeddine is near flawless, with a skillful direction, an engaging story, a fitting score and a captivating visual, but it particularly has to be praised for its actors.

A simple story told with abundant gentleness, Yomeddine looks at a group of outcasts with such compassion and generosity that it has the good manners not to artificially inflate their tale with phony uplift.

Rady Gamal, who plays Beshay, gives an affecting performance of playful charm with an undercurrent of deep sadness. He and Ahmed Abdelhafiz as Obama are a pair to root for, and Shawky gives them plenty of perils but also abundant moments of grace.

As Gamal, himself raised in a leper colony, knowingly navigates the uncomfortable glares he encounters along the way, Yomeddine (Arabic for “judgment day”) takes an affecting path toward belonging and acceptance.

Anchored by lead Rady Gamal’s warm-hearted charisma, the film is a sweet, solid first feature marbled with genuinely touching moments that make up for times when the siren call of sentimentality becomes a little too loud.

This is a picaresque road movie about two mismatched characters, with rookie director A.B. Shawky offering a motley and not entirely smooth cocktail of drama and melodrama, a dash of social critique and insight, some chuckles and a few tugs at the heartstrings, mainly by virtue of its near-virtuoso score.

It is a rather slight dramatic experience.