Oulaya Amamra, the lead who is the young sister of the director, is enormously promising in this brutal coming-of-age tale, Add her counterpart, Déborah Lukumuena and you one of my favourite best dialogue/friendship duets: "He eyed you up like a Bic Mac during Ramadan."

'Divines' joins the lofty 'Les Misérables' and 'La Haine' as our best views into French inequality. It's possible that those three equal or exceed the best ghetto crime dramas that the USA has to offer (I'm excluding 'The Wire' and 'The Corner' because those dirty beauties are series).

Wonderfully, 'Divines' gives us a female perspective, going much deeper than Céline Sciamma did with 'Girlhood'.

'Divine' made me laugh and excited but the inevitable collapse gut-wrenched me because I know that darkness is a reflection of our real world where inequality, for most, is a living death sentence. That's the present and intensifying world hierarchy.

It's unfair to viewers that Director Houda Benyamina's debut hasn't had a follow-up the past 6 years. The good news is that she has received funding for 'All For One' which will hopefully appear in 2023.

Great movie. And this IMDb summary doesn't do justice at all to what it's actually about. In fact the whole dancer love story was the cheesiest part of the film. This is the story of one girl and her friend, featuring a side story involving a dancer.

This is one very affecting movie, a type of film that fills you with a sense of real people feeling real emotions --nothing is fake, all the characters and all their needs are as real and painful as it gets. And just as in life, nothing is resolved in a satisfying ending.

The lead actress is one very ambitious young lady, Oulaya Amamra, who will make her mark on cinematic history soon, but you might want to catch her in her early stage to see how she progresses quickly to Meryl Streep (or at least Jennifer Lawrence) status. Her character's name is Dounia, and she is a daughter of the town slut in a Roma (Gypsy) camp.

Her best friend, Maimounia, a black girl, daughter of a Muslim priest, is as lovable as they come. The two of them conspire to become rich. Even though they achieve the goal, it eludes them in a way that is completely unfair, yet realistic. There is no simple resolution, and therefore, the film is just like life: it is completely and utterly unfair.

Although the plot seems simple, it is extremely more complex and a summary of the action doesn't do justice to the story. Dounia has a love-hate relationship with a male dancer that takes too much away from the rest of the film, and the scenes of the dancer are way over long and unnecessary, but thankfully it is the relationship that she has with her best female friend that is the true heart of the film.

To say more would detract from one's enjoyment of the twists and turns that ensue during the course of the film. Rest assured, you will be glad you spent time in the company of the actresses and the female director of this very impressive film.