Layla M. | Rotten Tomatoes (2024)

Audience Reviews

Audience Member I feel like this movie had so much potential. It had the ability to tell a great story but was ultimately too rushed. The movie didn't build up the radicalization enough and made it seem abrupt and sudden. Layla doesn't seem sympathetic because of this but rather spoiled and angsty. You could add more time to this, to make her transition feel more realistic, and more understandable. But the only real incident we see prior to her radicalization is a comment at a football game. Her family is well adjusted, she is well off enough to live a middle class life in Amsterdam, and she is able to go to university to study. She gives this all up for a radical cause yet the film take the time to build this story up. Stories of people that give up these kinds of life don't come from a bad day or week but months if not years of build up. And a lot of that is implied but it doesn't show the increasing racism in Dutch society. Overall the film just feels like a waste. Rated 1.5/5 Stars • Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/11/23 Full Review Audience Member Garbage. The movie shows a woman who falls in love with a man who is religious. It is because of him, she starts reading the Koran more and more, making her a fanatic who agrees to go with her husband to join a terrorist organisation. This movie practically shows us that if you read the Koran you would be more likely to join terrorists, become more extremist and even paranoid that the west has it out for you. Total waste of time. I would recommend watching anything other than this crap. Rated 0.5/5 Stars • Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/21/23 Full Review Audience Member A very well made movie with a great story that'll open your eyes to things that go on in the world. Great acting and the script make this worth seeing. Rated 4.5/5 Stars • Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/09/23 Full Review Audience Member No editorial in this film. No matter where you stand on the subject matter, you will be impressed with the impartiality of the effort. Love how the movie ends with a question mark of sorts. Nice effect. Rated 5/5 Stars • Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/24/23 Full Review Audience Member A stark reminder of how anger can colour perception. This film is also a warning to those of us who can get oblivious of changing times and expect reality to be what it used to be. Immigration to western countries have definitely modified social and cultural rules and it pays to lend serious attention when someone gets hypersensitive to what otherwise be a slight dent on one's identity. Films like these call for the rejection of single identities, for we Layla was a lot more than just a Muslim girl, or an immigrant girl in Holland. She was a woman with given opportunities. Rated 4.5/5 Stars • Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/27/23 Full Review Audience Member This is one of the best films I have seen, very well presented and a story well seen by women and men of any culture, though Layla M. is a girl and European Islamic culture the one the skilled Dutch director and her writer-husband focus upon. Why this movie has no rating and yet the gratuitously-indulgent "Call Me By Your Name" not only is rated but has received a "tomatometer" rating of 98% even before its official release is something both my husband and I wonder about. Neither of us saw the latter film as a great "coming of age" movie; we saw that LA Times "Envelope Series" movie as a hedonistic romp by a gay director and his many producer-actor friends, all men who all apparently hold the view that what women can contribute is servicing confused men in every way one might imagine and doing so without bitterness or regret. (Think Harvey Weinstein in the context of heterosexual encounters, at least as those are being reported almost daily?) The Layla M. story, in contrast, was genuine, gripping and - at least in my opinion - a far-more-important story for Rotten Tomatoes (and other film presenters/reviewers) to focus attention upon if our world is to see progress. Rated 5/5 Stars • Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Read all reviews Post a rating