Maryam Touzani knows how to saturate her films with light, texture and touch.

Mina (Lubna Azabal) and Halim (Saleh Bakri) are a married couple who have a caftan shop in a Moroccan town. Mina deals with the customers and Halim tailors and hand embroiders the caftans. It’s a craft he learned from his father, and he resists the push for machine-made fast fashion. This takes time, though, and to try and keep up with orders, they employ a young assistant Yousef (Ayoub Missioui in his first role).

What unfolds is a slow and gentle story of love, grief, and the beauty of hand embroidered gold thread. Mina and Halim are well matched in temperament and generosity. He is quiet and methodical, she is forthright and dogged. As we watch Halim frequent a bathhouse, it becomes clear that they are mismatched in their desires, something that Halim must hide.

His growing attraction to Yousef is not the dramatic obstacle you might expect, this is clearly not the first time he has had to sacrifice what he wants. This is not the heart of the story though. Mina is sick and her decline sees Halim and Yousef re-evaluate what is important.

The pace is slow – like hand embroidery, I suspect – and there are no big surprises, just the unfolding of a story that is as languid as the silk velvet that Halim sews. Throughout is the creation of an exquisite blue caftan for an important client, and the subtext is subtly woven.

All three actors are solid, with much communicated with a glance or small movement. Azabal is a standout, though, as she always is (Adam (2019), Incendies (2010)), and she makes Mina feel like a natural component of a love between two men.

Nominated for a foreign language film Oscar, this has all the elements to satisfy a discerning mainstream audience.

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