![Quickening (2021)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOTJlN2ZiMDItZTRhZi00ZDRhLWE3OWMtYzc2ZTcxNTQzNzVlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyOTQzMDg2MTg@._V1_QL75_UY207_CR1,0,140,207_.jpg)
![Quickening (2021)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOTJlN2ZiMDItZTRhZi00ZDRhLWE3OWMtYzc2ZTcxNTQzNzVlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyOTQzMDg2MTg@._V1_QL75_UY207_CR1,0,140,207_.jpg)
Writer-director Haya Waseem’s feature debut Quickening is not about a pregnancy. Knowing this is crucial enough that she opens the film with the definition of pseudocyesis—a false pregnancy wherein the woman experiences all symptoms of being pregnant without there ever being a fetus. Without it we would focus too much on what Sheila (Arooj Azeem) having a baby during her freshman year at college would mean for her future rather than accept it as the product of all the stress she’s endured from family, friends, romance, heartbreak, and just being a young woman of color trying to reconcile the demands of her cultural heritage against those of her Canadian home’s potential for independence outside it. Playing everything “safe” is no longer an option.
Not playing everything “safe” is terrifying, though. Waseem uses Sheila’s major in performing arts as a metaphor for her inability to fully let go of her upbringing,...
Not playing everything “safe” is terrifying, though. Waseem uses Sheila’s major in performing arts as a metaphor for her inability to fully let go of her upbringing,...
- 9/15/2021
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
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