The Canadian documentary “Coming Around” could be seen by some as a classic Liar Liar Your Pants Are on Fire story. Eman Abdelhadi is a Muslim queer of Palestinian descent living in Brooklyn, New York. She drinks, smokes weed, dances living a hajibless and openly queer lifestyle at least in Brooklyn. Her mother is a devout Muslim and is a psychiatrist in Columbus, Missouri.
The documentary flips between Brooklyn and Columbus. Her sister is also a devout Muslim. Eman simply can’t come out to her mother preferring to live a double life. In Brooklyn she is a feminist and even is a featured speaker at a Coming Out event but in Columbus she lives a live of deception on her frequent visits. Eman even enters into a 8 month long disaster of a “heterosexual” marriage celebrated in a Columbus mosque in an attempt to please her mother and half heartedly convince herself she can live the straight life. Hints galore have been thrown her mother’s way but at no point do I hear a frank and direct admission to her mother she is queer. The end result is not that her pants are on fire but her soul is.
One may derive the impression all queers come out like it is some sort of duty. Eman has great difficulty if not an existential dilemma in coming out so with deception to herself and her family she skirts the issue and “comes around” somewhat discounting her role and credibility as a feminist and a queer advising and mentoring on coming out. Is this a life of lies and deception or a poignant story of the agony queers may face coming out of the closet?
“Coming Around” is directed by Sandra Itäinen and premiers in Toronto at the Human Rights Film Festival on 8December2023.
Fascinating and creative.
RKS 2023 Film Rating: 84/100.
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