It's been six-and-a-half years since Amina and Sarah Said were gunned down in their father's taxi cab outside an Irving hotel. Yaser Said, the girls' father and prime suspect in their murders, has been on the run ever since.
The net may finally be tightening around him, though. In addition to increased FBI attention, Yaser is the subject of a new documentary The Price of Honor, which premieres at Lakewood Theater on September 7.
Directed by Neena Nejad and Xoel Pamos, the documentary explores the idea that Yaser murdered his daughters in a so-called "honor killing." It also examines the theory that he could be hiding out in the U.S., not his native Egypt.
Citing the ongoing investigation, Irving Police have refused repeated requests to release even a basic police report on the Said sisters' deaths. So Nejad and Pamos took matters into their own hands and conducted a private investigation over the course of three years.
They interviewed the girls' relatives and known associates of Yaser. Nejad and Pamos uncovered evidence that Yaser may have committed another murder in Egypt and that he sexually abused his daughters.
"As we got into this, we realized there was so much more to the story than the media knew or the FBI knew," Nejad says.
Tickets are $12 for general admission and $25 for VIP. Both tickets include access to a Q&A after the screening.
The opening scenes of the new drama Dreams are bracing, fictional sequences that call to mind real-life scenarios. In them, a young Mexican man named Fernando (Isaac Hernández) goes through a somewhat harrowing journey from the back of a semi truck in South Texas all the way to San Francisco. It’s a familiar immigrant story that seems to set the stage for a film with something interesting to say.
It turns out, however, that Fernando has not made the long and arduous trek for a job. Instead, it’s to be with Jennifer McCarthy (Jessica Chastain), a rich woman who helps lead a foundation dedicated to multiple things, including funding dance academies. Fernando, a talented dancer, and Jennifer have been in an off-and-on affair for years, with Jennifer wanting to keep their relationship a secret.
Although both are drawn to each other in an inexplicable, lustful way, their bond is tenuous, with each of them dissatisfied for different reasons. Fernando clearly sacrifices much more of himself than Jennifer, who wants for nothing except maybe more affection from her father, Michael (Marshall Bell), and brother, Jake (Rupert Friend).
Writer/director Michel Franco seems to try to inject tension into Fernando and Jennifer’s relationship from the start, an attempt that is only halfway successful. It’s clear from the way they greet each other - not to mention a steamy sex scene shortly thereafter - that they have known each other for a good length of time. Franco is able to get across this familiarity with an economy of scenes, and the intensity of their bond holds for a while.
But as the film progresses and both of them grow disenchanted with their arrangement, Franco starts taking the story in some odd directions. The biggest issue is that it’s never clear at what point in time the story is taking place. Fernando ends up making multiple trips back and forth across the border, with Jennifer doing the same at one point, and Franco’s use of flashbacks muddies the waters, wrong-footing the audience when he should be trying to draw them further into Fernando and Jennifer’s complications.
Revelations in the final act make the story even more confusing, as both main characters start saying and doing harsh things that seem to come out of nowhere. That would be all well and good if Franco actually committed to their changes of heart, but he keeps things wishy-washy for most of the final 15 minutes, resulting in an ending that makes little sense for either character.
Despite the story issues, both Chastain and Hernández give compelling performances. Chastain has been a little under the radar since winning an Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, but she keeps this character interesting longer than it should have been. Hernández has limited credits and appears to have been cast for his dancing ability, but he goes toe-to-toe with Chastain on more than one occasion and acquits himself well.
Dreams had all of the ideas to explore a more in-depth story about the complicated immigration policies between Mexico and the U.S., or how wealthy people take advantage of those less fortunate. But Franco never finds the right footing, settling instead for a titillating and somewhat mystifying relationship story that feels half-baked.
