Gulf

Filmmaker Ogrodnik debuts with a weighty if underdeveloped novel comprising loosely connected narratives of five women in the Middle East. In Saudi Arabia, new bride Dounia chafes at the strictures of married life. After she learns she’s pregnant with a girl, she’s distraught at the prospect of bringing her daughter into a world of gender-based violence. Justine, an American curator for a museum in Abu Dhabi, adjusts to living alone in a new part of the world while her husband stays behind in New York City. Flora loses her infant son and her shop to a typhoon in the Philippines, forcing her to seek employment as a maid in the Gulf to support her teenage daughter. In Syria, Zeinah is forced to marry an ISIS fighter and struggles to accept her new way of life, joining the female morality police despite her reservations. Finally, Eskedare, an Ethiopian teen, develops a strong bond with her friend Amara and is heartbroken when Amara moves to Qatar. Aside from Dounia hiring Flora, the connections between these story lines are merely coincidental, and a tragic arc involving one of them is heavily telegraphed. While Ogrodnik sheds light on various hardships faced by the women, there’s little in the way of narrative conflict. This falls short of its ambitions. (May)