Fremont Review

"Don’t you feel like the stars always change here? They don’t stay in one place," a character plaintively observes in the opening scenes of Babel Jalali’s moving and funny Fremont, the story of a young Afghan refugee, Donya, now living in Fremont, California. She spends her days working in a fortune cookie factory and her evenings wracked with insomnia, contemplating the home she has left behind and the town she now finds herself in. Drifting through a quiet existence, Donya decides to send an unconventional message through a fortune cookie in a bid for real human connection.

The film was astutely labeled “Jarmuschian” by The Guardian’s Wendy Ide, and Jalali poignantly mixes the deadpan humanism of Jim Jarmusch’s best work with timely themes of displacement and modern alienation. However, far from being bleak, the film’s gentle approach to such large themes feels warm and ultimately optimistic.

Cinematographer Laura Valladoa’s gorgeous black and white images, combined with its use of the academy aspect ratio, create a sense of wistful loneliness, with characters rarely sharing the same frame. Instead, they are captured in intimate, monochrome close-ups. The film though, inarguably belongs to its star, first-time actor Anaita Wali Zada. Sought and cast via social media, Zada’s real-life experience as an Afghan refugee bleeds into the role and lends the film astonishing authenticity and grounding. Elsewhere, we have a darkly funny turn from cult comedian Greg Turkington as Donya’s oddball psychiatrist and a sweet, understated supporting performance from Jeremy Allen White, of the Disney+ hit show The Bear.

For our members who screened and loved Ben Sharrock’s Limbo from 2020, this feels of a piece: intelligent, dryly amusing, and deeply felt. A heartwarming treat we think community cinema audiences will love.

Fremont is available to screen through our Booking Scheme now.