The Perfect Candidate Depicts the Punishing Work of Fighting for Equality

For some women of color, great aspirations and bold voices can feel like a burden, particularly when their families would rather not disrupt the status quo due to log kya kahenge — “what people might think,” practically a proverb in Urdu and Hindi. It can be especially difficult for such bold women to live according to age-old norms. But once an individual has found herself butting against one too many boundaries, she will inevitably fight back.

Such is the story of The Perfect Candidate, a Saudi Arabian drama that follows Maryam (a quietly captivating performance from Mila Al Zahrani), a young doctor who finds herself hitting one wall after another, entirely due to her gender. While she might be the best doctor working at the local clinic, she is still brutally berated by a male patient who demands she not even look him in the eyes — he prefers to be examined by inept male nurses, even as he screams in agonizing pain. Later, when Maryam reaches out to her councilman in the hopes that he’ll advocate for having the road to the clinic paved, she is rudely rebuffed as if she is being overdramatic about the issue — a whole medical degree be damned.

Then comes the final straw. Planning to attend a medical conference in Dubai where she’d be able to interview for a better position at an esteemed hospital, Maryam borrows a large sum from her sister for the plane ticket and takes time off work — but naturally, she doesn’t manage to make the flight. Her travel permit has expired, and her guardian — her father — is unable to renew it in time. (The Perfect Candidate, for the record, was filmed before, in 2019, Saudi Arabia began allowing women to travel without the permission of a male guardian. Leaves quite a lump in the throat, doesn’t it?)

Much like the viewer, Maryam is left frustrated. No matter how hard she works and how good she is at that work, her gender keeps getting in the way of her goals. And when she responds with anger, she is largely met with jeers. This is when Maryam hits her threshold. Out of pure convenience, she signs up to run for municipal council — doing so helps her get an appointment with a higher-up who might be able to help with her travel permit. But it occurs to her that this opportunity could be exactly the path she needs in order to free herself from needing a man’s permission to do, well, most things.   

It is, predictably, an incredibly difficult road. After winning her two sisters’ support, Maryam meets with the women of her town. While at first they question if “this is just another women’s rights thing,” she eventually wins them over — but they ultimately tell her they won’t vote for her for fear of ruffling feathers, or because their husbands won’t approve. And of course, winning the men over is an almost impossible obstacle, with one naysayer commenting on her campaign video, “How long will we let women speak out in this impudent way? Shameless!” Even her own typically supportive and progressive father declines to show up for Maryam, dismissing her efforts as “craziness.” Nevertheless, she blazes forward.

But as charming as Al Zahrani is, and as inspiring as Maryam is, The Perfect Candidate makes for a rather simplistic tale that follows all the traditional beats of a feminist’s journey with few surprises. In that sense, this story might have been better served as a more fleshed-out miniseries. 

Writer-director Haifaa al-Mansour was the first woman to make a Saudi feature film with her 2012 debut Wadjda, which was also the first film shot entirely in the country. The Perfect Candidate marks al-Mansour’s return to her homeland after establishing a career in Hollywood over the past decade with 2017’s Mary Shelley and 2018’s Nappily Ever After. And her connection to her home country shows — there’s a familiarity to al-Mansour’s lens.

Real change in a patriarchal society takes time and starts small, sometimes with just a single vote. If that sounds like a one-dimensional message, there is something more to it — it’s the victims who must often be the ones to fight, at first alone, and eventually with a chorus behind them.