Fridae

Malaysia's most acclaimed director Yasmin Ahmad returns with another gentle and nuanced drama about a boy and a girl who cross racial and religious lines to forge a true friendship. A warm and sweet film with a deep core of sentiment, it's arguably one of her best works.

Yasmin's favourite actress Sharifah Amani plays a strong-headed woman who had run away with her sister (played by real-life sister Sharifah Aleysha) from an abusive father in Kuala Lumpur, to live in the quiet town of Ipoh. Still struggling with memories of their late mother, the sisters speak in a secret code that frustrates those from the outside.

Enter Brian Yap, a young teacher with personal issues of his own. At first intrigued by the sisters' unusual bond, he gradually becomes drawn to the elder sister's keen intelligence and oddball charms. Though she is Malay and Muslim, and he Chinese and Roman Catholic, they find commonality in their painful pasts and contrasting perspectives�

With a title like Muallaf (The Convert), one would assume that the film portrays religious conversion in the name of love. However, the movie does not deal with this at all. We are never sure if the two are simply friends or a fledgling couple, and the film concludes on an open-ended note that could be frustrating.

The director herself has said that "Conversion, in the case, could simply refer to a change of heart about the past, and not necessarily a religious one." Muallaf certainly thrives in its own ambiguity, suggesting that perhaps it matters not whether they were lovers or friends or whether either one was bound for religious conversion.

All that matters is the human connection.