The film is reported to address boldly, yet sensitively, some tough and critical issues confronting Saudi society and "modernity".  Just the fact that the film was made -- plus the fact that it seems to be getting lots of attention -- provides some hope that things might be "loosening up" in Saudi Arabia.  Maybe even the gangster+theocrat tandem running the country won't have enough power to contain the yearnings for freedom of expression and independent lifestyle and openness among the vast numbers of young people in Saudi Arabia.

Excerpt from CNN report:

Keif El Hal is a comedy drama about family torn between modernity and tradition. A young woman wants a career after college, but her fundamentalist brother wants to her arrange her marriage, even defying their parents:

FATHER: "I'll never force you to marry.  Neither God's law nor my love for you permits it.

Meanwhile, a subtle romance develops with a liberal leading man [played by Star Academy's Pan-Arab winner Hisham Abdul Rahman]:

LIBERAL LEADING MAN: "You'll not find a man who'd cherish Sahara as I do."

It's carefully scripted to avoid offending Saudi society --

ONE SAUDI MAN TO ANOTHER: "A woman has no resort but a husband to care for her, a home to preserve her, or a grave to hide her."

-- but delivery tackles sensitive social issues like religious extremism and women's rights, even showing women driving in a country where only men are traditionally allowed behind the wheel.

The film also has Saudi Arabia's first silverscreen actress Hind Mohammed, who appears both in the film and in press interviews without a veil or head-covering, and says, "I don't think I did anything that goes against Islamic law."

Veteran Saudi actor Turky Al-Yousef plays the fundamentalist brother, and "received several anonymous threats during filming".

Producer Halawani admits in the CNN clip that without media empire Rotana and its owner Prince Walid bin Talal's backing,

Of course for any other producer to make this movie it would have been a very big risk, because there is no cinemas in Saudi Arabia, they can't release it theatrically over there.  But we decided to do it to kind of open the door.

That's not the only kind of risk any other producer would have been taking without a royal nephew's backing.

More than whether the film is any good (even if it is lacking in entertainment and art value, it more than makes up for it in boldness and relevance), I wonder how much covert play it is getting in Saudi Arabia itself... and whether it will help to open the door to more liberal ways of thinking and living in that closed country.