Girls of the Sun

Inspired by a 2014 raid by Islamic State fighters on Kurdish territory, Girls of the Sun is a somewhat turgid yet effective story about Kurdish women who survive kidnapping and abuse by ISIS, reinventing themselves as soldiers helping to clear the enemy from Northern Iraq. Mathilde (Emmanuelle Bercot), an eyepatch-wearing French journalist embedded with a female combatant unit, serves as the entry point into their lives and backgrounds. The story’s anchor is unit commander Bahar (Golshifteh Farahani), whose mission includes liberating an area where her young son is being held captive. The bond she shares with Mathilde allows her to open up about her pre-capture life as a wife and mother, underscoring her startling metamorphosis into a weary warrior. (Jihadists believe that women soldiers are a particular threat because being killed by one denies the dead an afterlife in heaven.) While writer-director Eva Husson is guilty of overblown dialogue and unnaturally pumping up the valor of Bahar and others, the film overall is still a compelling portrait of courage. Recommended. (T. Keogh)