Film
Hot Water (2026)
Ramzi Bashour
4/5
A gentle well-rounded road movie
Ramzi Bashour’s first feature finds just the right distinctive tone to realistically portray the fraught but affectionate relationship between mother and teenage son. With two excellent leads in Lubna Azabal as Layal, a highly strung single mother and Arabic lecturer, and Daniel Zolghadri as her son Daniel who has just been expelled from high school for hitting a hockey teammate, Hot Water manages to make all the protagonists likable and flawed in a measured narrative of gentle character development.
Layal decides that the only way her son could complete his high school education is if she takes him to his father on the other side of the country in Santa Cruz. Daniel accepts this solution and they embark on a long road trip. Interspersed with soft humour, moments of conflict, meditation and warmth, Bashour’s film celebrates the best characteristics of a road trip movie to which he adds his own laid-back and considered vibe.
There are some lovely striking meditative shots as the duo travel through the changing landscape. Daniel takes random Instagram photos from the car, hackneyed perhaps but true to the moment. The director of photography Alfonso Herrera Salcedo produces some impressive work to sensitively stage and enhance the story and surprise the viewer with his perspectives.
The humour mainly arises from the contrast between a strict Lebanese mother and her laid-back American son. She squirts hand sanitiser and he smokes weed. She is direct, suspicious and quick to lose patience and temper, and he a relaxed and happy young man who still hasn’t been tainted by life experiences. But he is also protective of his mother. There is a wonderful scene in a seedy Vegas hotel room when both mother and son rail at the noisy sex of next-door neighbours clearly heard through cheap thin walls. Layal’s description of Las Vegas on the phone to her mother in Beirut also amusingly hits the nail on the head.
Neither Layal nor the viewer are certain at the beginning whether Daniel may have a problem with violence and controlling his anger. But as the film unfolds his character is slowly fleshed out and we see a much more nuanced and true-to-life picture of his interactions with people, showing that he is kind and considerate.
As well as directing, Bashour wrote the script and co-wrote the music with James Elkington, and as a result the cinematic world view comes together beautifully. We often see films today with overbearing music, and I’m glad that Bashour rather than drowning the narrative chooses to use his low-key suggestive musical fragments to support it.
Half-way through the trip, it turns out that dad is letting them down again and not meeting them half-way. Then we encounter Sacha, played with bohemian sincerity by Dale Dickey, who lets them stay with her until they decide what to do next. But Sacha is an uninhibited nudist and it is testing for Layal to learn to accept her. It is here that Layal starts to relax. It seems that this is the first time in a while that she has had more time to reflect.
There is a wealth of enjoyable discreet, funny and insightful vignettes in Hot Water. At the beginning there is a hilarious confrontation between a narcissistic entitled student and Layal who has recently stopped smoking and is very much on edge. When Layal and Daniel get ready to drive off, Layal asks if Daniel has taken all the essential items and also whether he has said goodbye to the house. Daniel is perplexed and amused but starts looking at the house trying to understand what his mother meant. Then surprisingly to him and to us, saying goodbye comes quite naturally.
At the end, when they have reached Santa Cruz and Daniel’s father, Layal recognises that Daniel is growing up, is more responsible than she gives him credit for, and accepts that he should make some of his own decisions. She in turn has made some of her own too.