Haifaa Al-Mansour is known for ability to capture the reality of life in her characters. We see this in such a film as her 2012 film Wadjda. Her yearning to reveal the internal life of a character through the external circumstances of their life is something that the director has a pulse on. In this film, we watch as the protagonist, Violet, struggles to get the life she hoped for and everything comes crashing down all to be rebuilt once more. Most poignantly Al-Mansour's film reveals the struggle of a black woman in a white world that tells her to be "perfect", be beautiful and be sexy. This constant advertisement (Do you see the tie-in for why Violet's profession is advertising?) has sculpted her reality to believe that she isn't enough unless the world believes she is beautiful.
The struggle to keep this mask up is exhausting. So much so that Violet breaks up with her boyfriend who doesn't propose to her because he doesn't know who she is, she dyes her hair blonde and eventually shaves her hair. It's a symbol that everything she's bought into about life and who she's supposed to be is wrong. She rebels against it and feels ashamed for her choice until she's given permission to own her new look by a group of cancer survivors. Yes, it is on the nose, but when a person is faced with believing their decision to be himself or herself for the first is wrong, does it matter the extreme a story goes to to encourage that person to own being herself? Sometimes the greatest artistic expression is being willing to be on the nose with what you're saying to an audience because it simply matters.
In the end, the director's image of Violet floating in a pool on her wedding day reveals the peace in the release of loving oneself wholly. And the infectious nature of doing so, which we see when every at the party, including her Mom & Dad jump in with her. This imagery tells us everything we need to understand about choosing to walk the road of finding one's true identity, which is what this film is all about.
