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New York Times
06-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Rule Breakers' Review: Afghanistan's First Robotics Team
The underdog sports drama receives a wholesome twist in 'Rule Breakers,' a movie based on the experiences of Afghanistan's first competitive robotics team. This is a story of heartening firsts: Roya Mahboob, who spearheaded the initiative for schoolgirls, is the first woman to own a tech company in Afghanistan. The director Bill Guttentag and his cast get the can-do spirit at its core, as well as the societal constrictions that make such perseverance especially impressive, but it's also a story that could have been told with more concision and subtlety. In the movie, Roya (Nikohl Boosheri) assembles the Afghan Dreamers, a group of schoolgirls from Herat Province: Esin (Amber Afzali), Taara (Nina Hosseinzadeh), Haadiya (Sara Malal Rowe) and Arezo (Mariam Saraj). With Roya's brother Ali (Noorin Gulamgaus) as the coach, the team weathers a series of setbacks and breakthroughs. Getting to their first match, in Washington, involves considerable bureaucratic red tape that leaves them a ridiculously short window of time to build their robot. Their challenging journey becomes international news. Back home, the girls' fame draws the wrath of the Taliban. Undaunted by threats and slurs, they press on, their return to the competition circuit captured in music-fueled montages that feel like raves for science geeks, with a high-spirited turn from Phoebe Waller-Bridge as an emcee and event judge. But beyond the celebratory energy is something more urgent: the teenagers' commitment to cooperation and connectedness in a world too often defined by war and, in Afghanistan's case, a long history of occupation. In the movie's most searing moment, the Afghan Dreamers explain the land mine detector they've built, an antidote to the horror of living in a place filled with unexploded ordnance. A girl on the Vietnamese team listens. 'My country too,' she says. Rule BreakersRated PG. Running time: 2 hours. In theaters.
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Rule Breakers' Review: True-Life Drama About All-Girls Afghan Robotics Team Hits Its Inspirational Marks
This latest movie from Angel Studios demonstrates that the distributor's interest in releasing films that veer away from proselytizing is paying off artistically. Relating the true-life story of the Afghan Dreamers, a group of young women who groundbreakingly participated in international robotics competitions, Bill Guttentag's Rule Breakers proves inspirational in the best sense of the word. The film's release is perfectly timed for Women's History Month. Scripted by the two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker (for the documentary shorts Twin Towers and You Don't Have to Die), along with Jason Brown and Elaha Mahboob, the film centers on Roya Mahboob (Nikolhl Boosheri), whose interest in computers wasn't exactly encouraged in her native Afghanistan, as demonstrated by an early scene in which she's nearly assassinated. More from The Hollywood Reporter Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Wells Street Films Signs First-Look Deal With 'Fleabag' Stage Show Producer 'Sound of Hope' Director Apologizes to Letitia Wright for Daily Wire Partnership Letitia Wright Says It "Was Not My Decision" to Have Daily Wire Distribute 'Sound of Hope' When she was a young student, she was ordered to leave the classroom along with the other girls when the teacher began instructing the boys as to how to use some newly arrived computers. She's shown forlornly peeking in through the window, desperate to learn a subject that fascinates her but is denied to her gender. Several years later (the film suffers at times from its confusing timeline), she's a star university student who strikes a deal with a friendly café owner (Nassar Memarzia) to teach him how to use the computer he keeps for his male customers if he'll let her practice on it every morning before he opens up. Not much later she's not only become an expert with the technology, but has also started her own successful software company and opened a computer school for girls. Their interest is deeper than she expected; when she decides to create an all-girls robotics team and seeks four members, dozens of girls show up to audition. Needless to say, the team faces numerous hurdles, including the resistance of the girls' families to let them participate. But Roya proves as persuasive as she is determined, as illustrated in one of the film's best scenes, which finds her convincing one skeptical father to let his daughter pursue her dream. The obstacles continue even after the team proves their mettle. Preparing to travel to America to participate in a competition, the girls are denied visas for such reasons as having recently traveled to Iran to visit a relative. After Roya appeals to a sympathetic American journalist to write about their plight, the story becomes an international media sensation. And even then, traveling at the last minute, they're nearly unable to get on a sold-out flight until several people volunteer to give up their seats. The ensuing plot developments as the team travels around the world participating in robotics competitions strike both familiar and fresh beats, the former stemming from the standard tropes endemic to the genre and the latter from the unique circumstances involved. For instance, after one competition, the girls excitedly sign the shirts of competing male players and get theirs signed in return, leading to shaming by their relatives and violent threats from the Taliban. There's even the obligatory competition montage scored to upbeat music, in this case the Black Eyed Peas' 'I Gotta Feeling.' But despite its occasionally stale elements, the film succeeds movingly thanks to the inherent power of its narrative and the terrific performances by Boosher and the four young actresses (Amber Afzali, Nina Hosseinzadeh, Sara Malal Rowe, and Mariam Saraj) as the team members. Ali Fazal (Death on the Nile, Victoria & Abdul) shows up briefly but appealingly as an Indian-American businessman who provides moral and financial support, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge displays a warm, winning presence as a competition judge. Rule Breakers proves scattershot in its storytelling and features one or two too many last-minute crises for its plucky heroines to overcome. But by the time the titular characters enter the climactic competition with their ingenious invention of a landmine-detecting robot that has the potential to save thousands of lives around the world, you'll be thoroughly rooting for them. The end credits provide a satisfying coda informing us about the real-life figures involved, including Roya Mahboob being named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 20 Times the Oscars Got It Wrong The Best Anti-Fascist Films of All Time Dinosaurs, Zombies and More 'Wicked': The Most Anticipated Movies of 2025
