🎥 From initial production chatter to the release of the first promotional posters, the 2025 Um Kalthoum biopic El Sett has gotten more than its fair share of social media attention. Many people are questioning the choice to cast Mona Zaki as the legendary Kawkab el Sharq.

To tell Um Kalthoum’s story, screenwriter Ahmed Mourad traced the trajectory of Um Kalthoum’s life through key vignettes, starting with the 1967 Olympia concert in Paris. We’re introduced to the young Souma, who performs at village weddings alongside her brother Khaled, and father Sheikh El Beltagi (Sayed Ragab). After a chance discovery by a talent scout, her life changes irrevocably. From there, the film follows the rising legend and the increasingly isolated woman she becomes off-stage.

It’s not a bad film… but it’s not all that great either. When it comes to high budget productions, we expect the worst, but hope for the best. Given the complexity, authority, and historical significance of Um Kalthoum, we worried that no cinematic adaptation would do her justice, and went into the theater with very little expectations. El Sett ended up occupying some sort of middle ground — not phenomenal, but not catastrophic.

Mona Zaki was committed to the role, and gave it her all to convey Kawkab el Sharq’s emotional complexity. That said, the dialogue was — at times — lacking and inauthentic. The makeup department certainly didn’t do Zaki any favors either, and the Egyptian actress bore little to no resemblance to the late legend. The film’s main problem was its script. El Sett struggled with a fragmented screenplay in an attempt to capture every single milestone of Um Kalthoum’s life. This overly ambitious undertaking resulted in a series of disjointed snapshots, and while many individual moments landed emotionally, the narrative as a whole struggled to connect, resulting in a three-hour runtime that still felt unnecessarily stretched thin.

Mourad’s characterization of Um Kalthoum, which painted her as an overbearing, opportunistic, and ungenerous figure resulted in a lightning rod of criticism, and moviegoers made their discontent with his artistic license known. Another point of contention was the things left unsaid — several historical figures essential to El Sett’s journey were either relegated to the periphery or cut out entirely.

From a directorial standpoint, Marwan Hamed left little to be desired, but one artistic choice left us baffled. The film was beautifully directed — if at times too visually stimulating — but the frequent, seemingly arbitrary transitions between color and black-and-white cinematography seemed to lack a thematic pattern. The last film to employ these transitions was Oppenheimer — director Christopher Nolan used color to denote when he used his artistic license, relegating black-and-white scenes to cold, hard fact. But we couldn’t apply this logic to El Sett, and the indiscernible pattern led to a disjointed viewing experience.

While this may be an unpopular opinion, we loved Hisham Nazih’s score for the movie. Nazih offered stellar renditions of iconic Um Kalthoum classics such as Enta Omri and Alf Leila w Leila. Combined with brilliant costuming — including custom jewelry from Azza Fahmy — and exquisite set design, certain scenes were incredibly beautiful and moving.

Is El Sett worth your time? Yes. Does it deserve all the hate it’s been getting? No. Is El Sett a legendary biopic to be referenced in years to come? We’re afraid the answer is also no.

WHERE TO WATCH- El Sett is screening at Vox Cinemas at City Center Almaza and Mall of Egypt, City Stars Cinema, D5 and CFCM’s Scene Cinema, Cima Arkan, P90 Cinema, and Zawya. Watch the trailer on YouTube (runtime: 2:14).

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