User Reviews

The idea of a Saudi citizen wanting to be a film director might be a little bit derivative but the movie improves by the timeline and exceeds my expectations by being unpredictable and funny. Sure, it might have its corny moments but the acting and the production is better than any Saudi film i've ever seen.

Loved the movie, the whole movie was so reflective of our society and of the things that touched and affected us in our most sensitive youth. The characters were so vibrant and vivid, the storyline had the perfect ups and downs that colors any great movie. The comedy was brilliant. The directing was innvoative and aesthetically beautiful. Loved everything about it and hopes it is a firestarter for a promising Saudi cinema.

It was my first Saudi movie that I watched and I couldn't be more happy, fulfilled, relevant ever in a movie such as this one. The directing and acting efforts were so good it left amazed honestly with a great story and well rounded characters that I've felt so relevant to, in all, I couldn't be more proud about a Saudi production, especially in the most heart warming aspect of entertainment, cinema. Well done boys.

The first Saudi feature-length film to be shown in our local cinemas and I'm proud of what I saw. I already had faith in the team behind this movie but to not be disappointed I lowered my expectations and as you can see from the title of this review they definitely delivered.

The movie was balanced in all its aspects in my opinion. Most of the jokes landed well, the shots were highly Stylized but not too flashy, the conflict between the characters was acted and delivered without exaggeration. The whole concept of the movie any saudi can relate to it especially the school and everything happened in it and I liked that.

I'm so happy to see this kind of production coming out from where I live. We have been waiting for a long time to see movies made here in Saudi Arabia. I'm now more motivated to keep pursuing my dream of becoming a filmmaker.

Mr BaraaAlem you've done a great job and I hope that we gonna see your face again in that big screen.

Good job for the casting department for choosing BaraaAlem.👏👌



Lord_Stark5

This movie represents a wonderful start to saudi cinema

I liked the movie, but for the first twenty minutes I was bored, but then I was amazed at the movie and didn't feel the time. Nice scenario. I loved the movie very much and recommend it to everyone to watch it and give a chance to Saudi movies because they are worth watching.

The movie succeed by letting me have fun and laugh, The movie gave me a very unique experience to that I'm thankful and I congrats the actors and the director and overall it's a very enjoyable movie . Thank you .

I really enjoyed watching the movie and I recommend watching it

This is the first Saudi movie that I don't regret going to . The first 20 minutes was a little boring and I felt this was the worst decision in my life to come and watch this movie but then things started to get better and better. I would have given this movie 8 but the movie is loaded with profanity . I was confused that I did not understand if this amount of profanity considered as a regular part of the conversation or is it to make the conversations between the characters sounds more funny .

It is definitely a fun movie to watch and really wasn't expecting much from it, but it delivered a decent fun movie for me (because of social problems it portraits and being throw this kind of education system/life) . The movie had alot of potential to deliver but the writers chose the easiest way to write the script.

The Book of Sun is both a high school coming-of-age comedy and a film about guerrilla filmmaking, and it nails it in both areas. The story is very entertaining from start to finish and invokes an atmosphere I have enjoyed in films like Bowfinger and The Disaster Artist without actually being anything like either films. Here is a film that was truly made for the local sensibility and very true to that, yet I believe would be a smashing success has it been given the chance to play internationally. The filmmaking is very well done, and the camera shots are smart and dynamic without being flashy. The filmmakers smartly imploys music, animations, outdoors shoots, and camera flourishes in service of telling a really good story. Set in 2010, it would have been a tall order recreating that time and place in a country with little infrastructure and expertise to pull that off, but the filmmakers managed to do that on a budget that must have been modest, and used the limitations to double down on the DIY atmosphere of a high school kids with talent and passion trying to make a movie in an atmosphere that was anything but supportive. There is a high level of situational comedy, and the cast who consists of mainly unprofessional and unseasoned young actors really delovered on the jokes. Baraa Alem, playing Hosam the aspiring filmmaker, is very good in delivering a wide range of emotions between the drama and the comdey. He is the straight man in this mayhem. The stakes are high for him, because his future is on the line, and the pressure is high on him to succeed in school to become what his family and society deem a successful man, even if it means abandoning his passion for filmmaking which he is clearly good at. The supporting team lead by Sohayb Godus, Ahmad Sadam, and especially Ismail Alhassan truly deliver on the comedy in a big. If Baraa Alem's Hosam is the brain here, Ismail Alhassan's Ma'an his best friend is the beating heart of the gang. There are many funny gags that I believe should not be spoiled, and I feel they are ripe for repeat viewing. Not only the film is great, even the film within a film is the kind of shlock horror films I would totally watch and enjoy. This is in no way a perfect movie. If I have to say where it could have been improved, I would say the plot is predictable and the film would have been better off cut to 100 to 105 min instead of 2 hours. That said, it still is a very impressive effort considering it's the debut feature film of Godus Brothers. It is one of the rare times that I don't have to qualify my enjoyment by saying it's a good enough for a Saudi film, and instead I think it's a film that could stand on its own merits and represent us everywhere and not be graded on a curve, which might be the highest praise I can grant the film.

I think this is a great comedy and perfect story And maybe i could this is us

A very real movie Ma'am was great character Thank you guys you did something deserve every minute I watched

I want to start by saying that I've known the work of the Gudos brothers since their collaboration with Telfaz and other Youtube related projects. I wasn't very excited to see the movie fearing that it would be similar to other national projects that are cliched or cinge-worthy. But after actually seeing the movie I realized that it's nothing like any other Saudi project I'm very proud and delighted by this experience.

The movie follows the path of a high school kid (Hossam) who is passionate about movies, a passion he shares with his physics teacher (Orabi) and his peers. The group decides to kick off their career and make use of Hossam editing and directing skills by filming a horror movie "Shams al-maarf". Throughout their journey they encounter the difficulties of having dreams and working to achieve them in an environment that is not supportive to say the least.

What I mostly loved about the movie is how relevant it is, everyone can relate to it in one way or another, but its relevance doesn't affect how well thought the story is. The performance of the actors was great, this is the first time that I see Bara'a acting and he didn't disappoint, I was a bit concerned that Sohayb performance might be over the top sometimes like in "six windows in the desert" but it wasn't, he did a great job portraying the middle aged teacher who still feels like a kid once reminded of his dreams. The soundtracks used in the movie were beautiful, I enjoyed that almost all of them were original and in the Saudi dialect. Finally I really appreciated that the movie is not trying to be something it's not, not imitating other projects and trying to find its own style and uniqueness.

Shams Al-maarf is definitely a turning point for me to believe again in Saudi filmmakers, it's a movie that I would enjoy watching again and again.

Definitely not bad for a start. The acting, except for suhaib quds, was terrible though.

A very beautiful movie that I enjoyed and never felt the time, a wonderful comedy from everyone especially Baraa Alem, a movie written in astonishing way, and brilliantly produced. Greetings to you guys and very proud of you

6 stars is really what I think about this movie, actually If I compare it with the rest of SAUDI movies and TV shows it would be the best, 10 stars without thinking, but comparing to worldwide cinema, 6 stars is fair enough. First I'd start with what I didn't like about the movie "cons":

1- Really much use of bad language! I know they try to make the movie look much of Saudi real society life but this bad language is too much! Even with my closest friends I wouldn't say that, I don't know about Jeddah society since I'm from Al-Qassim but I don't think any SAUDI society would approve and accept that much use of bad language, and even 13+ movie wouldn't handle that much bad language

2- Too much outside references, people who don't know anything about directing/producing/designing would not understand/enjoy the movie, especially with lack of local movies we have, you would expect a lot of tastes and genres to see this movie so most of the audience wouldn't get the whole movie story

3- (not major thing) The movie supposed to be in 2010 but I notice a fair enough 2010+ stuff like Windows 10 in some computers

4- Since cinema is new thing to us I'd prefer if they respect some of Saudi values so they can have much audience to support them, despite the bad language, smoking and drugs references is too much for 13+ movie and for a society like Saudi, there's a lot of mocking of some saudi values I didn't appreciate it honestly, for a beginning of Saudi filmmaking, they have to have some respect of our values to have more support.

5- Classical representation of a dominating/commanding mother, weak/insecure father and perfect/beloved-by parents-sibling, all "teen" local and worldwide shows used that representation of a family.

6- The script is too replicated and predictable sometimes you get bored with it.

Now for the "pros":

1- Directing is so good, the image is always moving and not still you hardly can get bored

2- Some actors are really good they surprised me with their acting, especially Sohaib with Orabi character, I knew him for a YouTube Top 5 show but I didn't know he could act like that good, you have also Hussam I knew him from a channel in YouTube and I noticed there that he has a career in acting and it was a good thing to see his first role in a Saudi movie, other main characters were "meh", you really feel they "acting" the acting, but they have a good chance in acting career

3- Storyline was pretty predictable but in same time was a little bit good.

4- The movie took us to more than one place in Jeddah which made me feel that it's really "vivid" and make me take a "different" look to what the other sides of Jeddah is.

5- using animation to represent Hussam ideas was a really good move, I really liked it!

Finally, for a beginning, it was really good movie! And I can't wait to see how local filmmaking would be in future

A big step a head for saudi film making , comparison with saudi's other pruducts , that was so fascinating , the comedy was so nice , all the individuals where luaghing , an i really enjoyed watching this saudi pruduct that i proud of it although it's just a comedy movie , but i think it's an evolution

Very good acting Good directing Nice comedy moments

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Worst movie in 2020 , time wasting , overrated , overrated

This movie is phenomenal, I can watch it over thousand time and I will not be bored by it