Babah Review: Qi Razali and Sweet Qismina Bring Substantial Depth to This Moving Slice-of-Life Drama
At one point in Babah, Uncle Lim, a shop owner who sells watches, told Isyak (Qi Razali) that “everything happens for a reason“. For the first half, director Mohd Shah Faizul Ibrahim does a great job translating Wan Rafiq Fadzly’s screenplay to detail Isyak’s slice-of-life journey. Utilising a deliberate pace to embrace a mundane story, we learn about Isyak, who has a loving wife, Hayati (Cristina Suzanne) and their precious daughter, Maya (played by Kis Aisha and Dhia Arissa at different ages of 7 and 12).
Life seems to be perfect for Isyak ever since he entered fatherhood. He has a stable job as an architect in a company for years, and is also the sole breadwinner for his family. He loves to address Maya as his “princess”, and given his passion for watches, he understands the important value of time, where every moment, even a small one, is worth cherishing.
But life always finds a way to hit a setback, especially after Isyak unexpectedly finds himself being retrenched from the company that he’s dedicated his working life to. A job loss is a bitter pill to swallow, and more so for someone like Isyak, who has a huge commitment as a family man. A moment like this could have easily succumbed to histrionics and overwrought drama, and even though Isyak does inevitably express how devastating he feels about losing his job in front of his wife, Shah keeps his direction steady.
It also helps that he knows how to direct his actors, notably Qi Razali, who displays a subtle performance as the struggling father going through a phase. The struggle of landing a job should resonate with many people, particularly when it involves securing one which relates to the same industry. We see how Isyak is trying his best, going from one interview to another, but the much-needed second call seems like an eternity. The hope of getting back into the industry becomes dimmer as time goes by, forcing Isyak to make a hard choice. From there, he ends up working at the aforementioned watch shop.
The real-life stakes of Isyak’s life battling every hardship are all executed in a restrained manner without pushing too hard for the utmost dramatic effect. Years have passed as the story progresses, with Maya having now grown as a teenager (Sweet Qismina, in a solid supporting turn). Growing up into teenagehood leads to the inevitability of viewpoints in social and behavioral changes as the father-daughter relationship becomes a litmus test for Isyak to deal with the increasingly rebellious Maya.
The movie hits a turning point along the way, and this is where Shah tries to shake things up in the second half. For a movie supposedly carrying the title Babah (meaning “father” in Malay), I notice the story gradually fades away from placing Qi Razali’s character front and centre in favour of Maya’s character arc. Although there’s nothing wrong with the story developing another character, it would be nice if Shah manages to strike a fine balance without relegating Isyak to a side character. It’s not like Isyak in the latter years during Maya’s teenagehood and her subsequent adult life, entering the working world doesn’t play any significance.
But at the same time, there’s a nagging feeling about Shah’s decision to give Sweet Qismina’s Maya too much spotlight, making me question the purpose of the title. The second half somehow lacks the solid foundation that the earlier moments have built up steadily, which risks the movie falling apart. The shortcomings become more pronounced as Shah suddenly feels the need to delve into melodramatic territory. Not once but twice in the scenes revolving around Maya in the later parts of the movie. Certain moments feel like they are shoehorned just for the sake of forced relevancy, while some others tend to overstretch for their own good.
Still, the second half is not without its noteworthy moments. A montage on how Maya tries to tell her dad something while shopping in a supermarket adds a nice, lightweight touch to the movie. The same can also be said for the dinner scene, where Maya brings back her boyfriend Ikmal (Adam Lee) to meet her parents for the first time. Again, what truly holds this flawed movie together is the strong dynamic seen in Qi Razali and Sweet Qismina’s characters, even with all the shifts in the storytelling.
Babah is currently streaming on Netflix.
