Luxor review – Andrea Riseborough digs deep in PTSD drama on the Nile

Andrea Riseborough floats around the Egyptian city of Luxor in this contemplative drama from British writer-director Zeina Durra about a doctor with PTSD. Hana (Riseborough) has been working in a war trauma unit along the border between Jordan and Syria, and has returned to the city to re-centre herself; by her own bleak admission she’s “seen things nobody should’ve seen”.

For much of the film the heaviness of Hana’s spirit is felt rather than explained, reliant on Riseborough’s nuanced facial expressions and physicality rather than dialogue. She gets drunk and dances in the hotel bar, but the scene is tragic rather than cathartic; as she crumples against a wall we sense the weight of what she’s been carrying.

The pace is slack, though it picks up when Hana is reunited with former lover Sultan (a charismatic Karim Saleh), an archaeologist who, rather ironically, implores her not to live in the past.

• Available on modernfilms.com