Layla M.

Mijke de Jong's 2016 Dutch film follows Layla, eighteen. She is the daughter of a family of Moroccan origin, clever and angry, and the discrimination she meets at school and on the street pushes her into a search for identity. When she encounters a radical group she feels taken seriously for the first time and enters it quickly, marrying Abdel, one of its members, and travelling to the Middle East. The film does not explain radicalisation through religion, describing it instead through a need to belong, tension at home and the accumulation of exclusion. Where she arrives, Layla finds that the equality she was promised is not there either, and the real conflict grows from that. Nora el Koussour's performance carries the character without defending her. The film draws no easy lesson and positions Layla as neither victim nor culprit. Who it's for: viewers who can take social drama and accounts of radicalisation. Who it's not for: anyone expecting a clear verdict on the question; the film gives none.