Written and directed by Zeina Durra
Starring Andrea Riseborough, Karim Saleh, Shirin Redha and Michael Landes
Running time: 1 hour and 25 minutes

by Audrey Callerstrom

Luxor is a film more interested in showing you a place rather than a story. But what a place. If hearing “Luxor” made you think of the pyramid-shaped Las Vegas hotel rather than the one of the oldest cities in the world, same here. Luxor (not the hotel) served as the capital of ancient Egypt and is the site of the famous city of Thebes. The city has evidence of habitation going back over 5,000 years. That’s unfathomable to me. The only place I can find something more than 100 years old in my city is by getting in the car and driving to a museum, and even then, those artifacts roughly go back a thousand years.

In Luxor, a guide gathers a group of tourists and tells them that, before they enter a temple, they must breathe into their heart centers. Visiting Luxor is a profound and spiritual experience. A woman apparently faints because it’s so overwhelming. Some people visit because they feel they are the reincarnation of Egyptian gods. Hannah (Andrea Riseborough), a doctor, visits on vacation after finishing up an assignment near the Jordan-Syria border. Something troubles her. It’s unclear if it was something traumatic she witnessed, or a deep depression that bubbles up when you continue to change locations but your mind still follows you. She tries to distract herself by visiting exhibits, going on boat tours and having a fling with an obnoxious traveler (Michael Landes). The turning point comes when she runs into her ex-boyfriend, Sultan (Karim Saleh), an archaeologist who worked on a dig with Hannah decades ago.

In just the last few years, Andrea Riseborough’s career has been a fascinating one to watch. She’s a true chameleon, unrecognizable from role to roles. In 2018 she was Nicolas Cage’s cool, unassuming girlfriend who meets a tragic end in Mandy; recently, she played a more sinister character in Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor. And here she was as a party guest in 2018’s Nocturnal Animals. Depending on the lighting, her eyes can look deep and black, or a light, icy shade of blue. I enjoyed watching her in Luxor, with shades of sadness peeking through. In a dance scene, she flails herself onto a chair, moves around on the floor in a circle, propelled by her feet, and then breaks out sobbing when she gets back to her hotel room. We don’t know what’s wrong and Luxor builds on that ambiguity as an ongoing theme. The assumption is that she has PTSD, but it could have a myriad of things. Keeping it ambiguous doesn’t necessarily make this element any stronger. In fact, keeping it nameless and vague deprives it of its power.

But Luxor does work in two distinct ways. One, it works as a movie that grasps your hand and shows you a place. Writer/director Zeina Durra filmed Luxor within the city. Presumably, many scenes contain actual citizens. Durra does not include any subtitles for when people speak to or near Hannah in the local language (Sa'idi Arabic, a dialect variant of Arabic). Hannah is familiar with the city, having been there long ago with Sultan, but it feels like she’s experiencing it anew. The other part of Luxor that works is the romance between Sultan and Hannah. It’s little things, like how familiar they are with each other after being apart for several years. How close they sit while cross-legged, sharing a smoke, their knees touching. How one of them sneaks a quiet smile while looking at the other. His hand on her shoulder; the way they play, like spirited youth, with the hotel’s archaic fax machines. They muse about time, history and youth much like Celine and Jesse in The Before Trilogy (also films that wanted to take you to a place). Saleh as Sultan is handsome, charming and sexy. His eyes are always on Hannah, even when she’s staring at her feet, or trying to inch away. To its benefit, Luxor leans more into the romance than the sadness. I didn’t find it particularly engaging on the initial watch, but it evokes a hopeful feeling that stays with you, and the chemistry between the two leads gives the film a palpable energy.

Luxor is available watch on demand and digital December 4.