With movies timing is everything and it couldn’t be more perfect in the case of Signature Move a deeply moving story of three ‘outsiders’ trying to fit in today’s world. They are all women (there is hardly a man in sight in the whole movie) and not just from different cultures but also dealing with such issues as being immigrants, lesbians and female wrestlers to boot .
Zaynab (Fawzia Mirza who also co-wrote the script) is a small-time Immigration Lawyer in suburban Chicago who has taken in her recently widowed Pakistani mother to live with her. The very conservative Parveen (Shabana Azmi) refuses to leave the house and spends her days with her binoculars pressed up against the window checking out passers-by in the hopes of spotting a potential suitable husband for her daughter.
When one of her clients who is a professional female wrestler offers to pay Zaynab in lessons instead of cash, she jumps at the chance as a way of working out some of her frustration and excess energy. It also is a way to get her out of the house as even though her view on the world is miles apart from that of her mother’s, Zaynab is nevertheless a dutiful daughter who tries to appease her every whim.
Escaping one day to a bar however, Zaynab gets hit on by Alma Sari Sanchez a very fiery Mexican who soon has her drunk on tequila shots and then in bed passionately making out. However next morning it seems that this will probably never happen again as both women are so different. It’s not a question of nationalities and culture but more the fact that openly gay Alma is the ‘love-em-and-leave-em’ type, whereas the inexperienced Zaynab wants a relationship, even though she is still totally in the closet. Most of all, as Alma is so quick to point out, it will not work out as Zaynab still has to fathom out what her signature move is!
The real joy of this deliciously entertaining new movie is that they all have such a finite joie de vivre about them. Their ‘issues’ may be serious and all about finding out where they fit in today’s world, but they are nevertheless imbued with a sense of humor too that encourages us to hope that they will find a way to overcome their problems. And who knew fierce women pounding each other in a wrestling ring could be part of the solution?
Directed by Jennifer Reeder and written by Lisa Donato and Fawzia Mirza with compelling performances from the three lead women, and also from Audrey Francis playing the wrestling coach and Charin Alvarez as Alma’s mother, this is bound to be a real-crowd pleaser beyond the Film Festival circuit too.
The only downside is that it makes you question the reality about what your own signature move actually is, and we are worried that we simply do not have one. Sad.
