In America, Seeing Isn’t the Same As Understanding

Read Time:5 Minute, 20 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
If You See Something
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Genre: Thriller, Drama
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 48m
Director(s): Oday Rasheed
Writer(s): Avram Noble Ludwig, Jess Jacobs
Cast: Adam Bakri, Jess Jacobs, Tarek Bishara, Lucy Owen, Hadi Tabbal, Krystina Alabado, Reggie Gowland, Hend Ayoub, Nasser Faris, Reed Birney
Where to Watch: in select theaters, get your tickets here: www.ifyouseesomething.ajointventure.com

RAVING REVIEW: Ali and Katie begin their relationship with the kind of strength that feels unstoppable — two people building a shared life in New York, thinking only of the promise ahead of them. But reality is never polite enough to wait for love to settle in. This film captures that moment when external forces make a private relationship suddenly feel like an open case file. It is grounded in the emotion that comes with starting over, particularly when one partner’s right to remain is always negotiable.

The personal experience behind the story shows through. Director Oday Rasheed understands how immigration isn’t only a process; it’s a psychological pressure point. He isn’t crafting a grand political statement — he’s showing the human toll of immigration as a daily negotiation between hope and fear. Ali comes to the U.S. with education, experience, and dedication, yet none of that guarantees safety. The film consistently points to how, in the asylum process, a person becomes both hyper-visible and entirely misunderstood. That tension drives most of the story: Ali wants to build a future, yet he is constantly pulled into the past that forced him to leave.

What works best here is the intimacy. The performances remain at the center of every moment. Adam Bakri delivers a quiet yet devastating portrayal of a man trying to protect his heart as intensely as he protects his survival. Jess Jacobs gives Katie a layered complexity — not a symbolic American savior, but a person genuinely trying to understand a struggle she has never personally faced. Their chemistry isn’t fantasy: it’s grounded, tender, but consistently strained by real-world fragility.

The film shines brightest when it exposes the inequity in who carries the burden of assimilation. Katie wants to help, and believes love guarantees clarity, but she can’t fully grasp the anxiety Ali carries — fear of surveillance, deportation, and the potential loss of everything he’s building. There’s a particularly uncomfortable dinner scene where casual ignorance slices deeper than overt hostility. Small comments, delivered with a smile, become acts of quiet harm — the kind you only recognize once you’ve felt the sting. This film was surely in the creative process before the current administration took office, but that realization only amplifies the horror of trying to make a better life for yourself.

While the character dynamics are compelling, the narrative structure occasionally feels too controlled. The emotional pacing can flatten the momentum, leaving the thriller elements more implied than experienced. You can sense where the tension should spike, but the screenplay sometimes pulls back before it reaches its full impact. A stronger escalation around the Baghdad crisis would have driven the plot and sharpened the film’s spine. Instead, moments that should feel suspenseful drift into subdued reflection.

This isn’t a story aiming for a focus on spectacle, yet a slightly bolder push could have transformed strong themes into something more absorbing. At times, the audience is left wanting to know more about Ali’s internal unraveling — the fear that if he speaks too much, everything collapses, contrasted with the danger of silence. The film considers these complexities but doesn’t always fully excavate them. There’s emotional truth here, but it remains somewhat guarded, mirroring Ali himself — a compelling creative choice, though not always the most engaging one.

This perspective is vital. In a country that’s even more obsessed with border headlines, this story focuses on the aftermath — the waiting, the decisions that carry legal consequences, the relationships tested under pressures invisible to outsiders. It directly addresses how immigrants are judged both for leaving danger and for being connected to it. A refugee becomes a suspect before they are seen as a human being.

The film ultimately argues that belonging is not gifted — it’s negotiated. And every negotiation comes with a cost. Even love cannot outpace systemic fear. When an asylum case becomes a looming threat, the cracks in a relationship become fault lines. The story leaves audiences contemplating the difference between seeing something and truly understanding it. Integration isn’t simply the act of entering a country — it’s the exhausting effort of convincing that country you deserve to stay.

This is a thoughtful, quietly affecting work. Not every moment lands with the strength it aims for, but the sincerity and human focus make it resonate. It gives a face to a process often buried in statistics and rhetoric — a reminder that every immigration case is a love story interrupted. A solid drama with perspective worth sitting with — and one that lingers in the space between fear and home.

@itsajointventure

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[photo courtesy of 9TH STREET FILMS, GREENMACHINE FILM, THE IMAGINARIUM FILMS, JOINT VENTURE]

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