‘Happy Birthday’ Is A Wistful Quest for a Wish Come True

In the quiet morning hours, before the adults awake to enforce their rules, the Princess and the Little Maid play together. They have adventures: the Little Maid, Toha, teaches the Princess, Nelly, to fish, and they eat ice cream. Despite their titles, there is no hierarchy. They are equals, two children who are only truly themselves when the adults aren’t watching. When the adults aren’t watching, they are friends.

In the Nora Ephron Award, Best Screenplay, and Best International Narrative Feature-winning film Happy Birthday, Toha and Nelly share a quiet moment where the latter explains what it means to have a wish fulfilled—because she is a Princess and, for her, wishes come easily. Toha has never heard of such a thing. She only knows how to pray, and she wonders if her prayers will ever be answered. Too quickly, their moment in time is over. Nelly jumps back into bed, pretending to be asleep. By contrast, Toha puts on her headscarf and starts her workday. She is eight years old—a child who throws away insulin needles and refills natural gas tanks. Meanwhile, it’s Nelly’s birthday, and although she wants a party, her life is about to change.

Toha quietly offers Nelly (Khadija Ahmed) a deal: “If I make the birthday happen, will you give me a candle to make a wish?” Nelly agrees and thus begins the Egyptian odyssey of a Cairo girl who doesn’t quite understand what the adults are fussing about. Director Sara Goher makes her feature debut at Tribeca with a supernova of charm, Doha Ramadan, as her Toha. The young actress has an enchantingly quirky grasp of her craft, creating a character we not only want to watch but want to see win. It’s through Toha and her interactions with the other characters that the story unfolds, one everyday adventure after another. From shopping and tricking a baker to selling fish with her family¹ at home to riding in a neon pedicab—Toha can’t give up on the dream of one wish. And although it is wistful and sometimes tough, Happy Birthday is wonderful because it’s a film you want to wrap your arms around, just like the little girl at its center.

The shopping scene with Nelly’s mother, Laila (Nelly Karim), is adorable but when we see their bond from another angle, it loses its glow. Toha’s dawning understanding of life is sculpted so deftly you cannot look away. Here, we learn that everyone thinks Toha is cute (when it’s convenient) but few truly listen or honor her hopes. This film and its heroine have a similar hold as Hans Christian Andersen stories and his little girl leads. Sara Goher and co-writer Mohamed Diab² have created something lush in their almost mythical tale of a little girl who doesn’t need someone else’s wish—no matter how desperately she seeks it—because she is the magic-maker.

1. Hanan Motawie as her mother, Nadia ↩︎
2. footnote: In a show of confidence in global filmmaking, Happy Birthday is also produced by Jamie Foxx and Datari Turner. ↩︎