Honeymoonish (شهر زي العسل) is a Kuwaiti romantic comedy film, where the latter part is nothing less than a dumpster fire throughout. Produced by Eagle Films, the screenplay is written by Eiad Saleh and Ramy Ali and directed by Elie El Semaan. The film has a runtime of about 1 hour and 40 minutes.
The cast of the film includes Nour Al Ghandour as Noor, Mahmoud Boushahri as Hamad Saleh, Faisal Almezel, Ascia Al Faraj as Amal, Mahdi Barwiz as Wael, Amal Mohammed, Ghorour, Reem Alnajem, Zaman Abdullah, Qahtan Alqahtani and others.
Taking place during an eventful honeymoon, Honeymoonish reveals the stark differences between Hamad and Noor as they navigate through love, mistaken identities, and the potential for redemption. Amidst a whirlwind of surprises, their journey unfolds with unexpected consequences, prompting the question – do opposites truly attract?
Honeymoonish Review
The leads of the story come from comparatively different backgrounds, the traditional Hamad Saleh is a workaholic who considers marriage a ‘failed contract’. Whereas, Noor is an outgoing fitness trainer, who can’t wait to get married to her boyfriend, who accepts her without imposing the orthodox/traditional rules on her life. As one should be wary when life seems to be going ‘too good’, both Hamad and Noor come across a big hurdle in their life paths.
Hamad’s international project, which he had been working on for the last 3 years is taken away from his CEO father. He gives him an ultimatum – get married within a month to inherit the company and everything else. Also, he should bring in the good news of his grandchild within the next few months. On the other hand, Noor’s longtime boyfriend, Youssef, informs her of a month-long work trip to Beirut but assures her lovingly of his loyalty to her. Sadly, his words were nothing but lies as his social media posts suggest that he got married to an acquaintance of Noor.
Taken aback by the setback in life, Hamad and Noor seem to have only one thing in mind – find a partner to marry. They seek help from their friends Wael and Amal, who happen to be a married couple and find it best to introduce one another. Even though they had asked them to set them up, they weren’t sure of the other, looking at their pictures. Both of them put up a different personality, Noor poses to be a calm and cultural librarian and Hamad pretends to be an outgoing, party animal. Yet they end up proposing marriage and get married quickly.
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The real deal starts on their honeymoon. Noor drags Hamad to Beirut, where her ex-boyfriend is also present with his wife. She intends to give him his own medicine and break his heart. Hamad mostly goes along her lead but internally, he is anxious about how to reveal that he married to procreate and keep his inheritance. However, another hurdle comes across when Hamad’s aunt hints that Noor could be his sister because his late mother might have breastfed Noor, as a kid. (Apparently, Hamad and Noor’s mother were friends, so there was a possibility).
This new revelation puts him in a dilemma and tries to avoid getting intimate with Noor until he gets a confirmation of their un-relatedness. Noor’s also conflicted since she couldn’t find Youssef anywhere and wasn’t ready to get together with Hamad yet. In a series of uncovering lies and truth, chasing and tricking, Hamad and Noor get to experience a different type of partnership than they had expected. Whether it will end in disastrous shambles or become one of the best things ever, lies in their own hands.
If you were to ask my opinion, then Honeymoonish was a stupendous disaster, nonetheless. First of all, the way the leads just want to get married for stupid/nefarious reasons and how they behave was just obnoxious to watch. Especially the female lead, Noor played by Nour Al Ghandour, was hard to watch. And it’s definitely not the actor’s problem but the way “modern” females are always portrayed in Middle Eastern content – self-obsessed brash who show themselves as superior/too smart but are put into place by their male counterparts.
And the male lead, Hamad Saleh played by Mahmoud Boushahri, wanting to marry just to get his project back and ready to impregnate to give proof to his father, was just weird if not disgusting. Adding on the drama of ‘they could be siblings because they were breastfed by the same person’ was another ridiculousness. It could be the cultural difference but I beg to differ if things are exactly the same in real life. Although Kuwait has the highest rate of cousin marriages, so if you were surprised by this element then believe it to be a true reality.
However, showing how easy it is to get married and divorced in their culture is misleading, for the masses and anyone tuning in for the first time. It only adds to the misconception of how marriage is nothing more than a game, where men keep on adding as many shiny items. While women lose all authority in their lives.
The biggest factor why anyone shouldn’t be wasting their time on Honeymoonish is the missing romantic comedy part that they had promised. The main leads are always fighting, getting on each other’s nerves as well as audiences. There isn’t one moment where we could see something building up between them. They are always like incompatible strangers and suddenly, the makers want us to believe that they fell deeply in love with each other. It’s just absurd to think about and equally bizarre to watch.
Rating: 1/5
Honeymoonish (شهر زي العسل) is available to watch on Netflix.
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