It helps that this trio are masterful in their respective roles, too. Boros is a mercurial Alpha, hard-headed and rebellious, though just as likely to sneak out of her window in the middle of the night as she is to call for her mother and be rocked to sleep. Rahim, meanwhile, a powerhouse in everything from A Prophet to The Mauritanian, commits body and soul in a heart-wrenching, staggering turn that is deserving of serious awards attention. However, I was even more impressed by Farahani: as Alpha’s razor-sharp mother, she lights up the screen with her fierce intelligence, understanding, compassion, and all-consuming fear of potentially losing the two most important people in her life. Her bonds with both Alpha and Amin have a gentle warmth and a natural, breezy believability.
The same is true for their extended family, whom we glimpse at raucous Eid celebrations and at another point when Amin is seriously struggling. Ducournau ought to be given credit here for not only choosing actors with North African and Middle Eastern heritage for the parts of Amin and his sister—still underserved in France—but also for not treating that choice as an instance of colorblind casting. These characters speak Berber as well as French, sing traditional lullabies, and are connected to their culture in a way that makes their world feel textured and fully lived-in.
There’s a supreme confidence to everything Ducournau does here—from the title card spelling out Alpha’s name on dry, cracked earth, to the booming music and the fluidity with which the camera moves—though the film is undoubtedly let down by its final act, a muddle of time jumps that could stand to be around 15 minutes shorter.
Still, it’s a wild, fascinatingly weird, and worthwhile ride nonetheless. As to be expected with any Julia Ducournau movie, there were several walkouts in the screening I attended, countless people watching through their fingers, and, afterwards, a deluge of negative reviews. Alpha definitely isn’t for everyone, but that’s the thing about cult-classic status—you don’t achieve it without your fair share of detractors. With Alpha, Ducournau has completed quite the trifecta when it comes to portraying the horrors of being a woman, and I, for one, can’t wait to see what she does next.
