Film | May 15, 2021 | “Girl power” is too simplistic of a term to fully capture the energy filmmaker Haifaa Al Mansour builds into her films. Still, on a surface level, the phrase applies. In 2012’s Wadjda, the first feature-length Saudi film made by a female director, Al Mansour captured a girl’s desire for freedom in the face of traditionally conservative thinking. (A solid trio of viewing would be Wadjda, the Dardenne brothers’ Cuties.) After her subsequent films, 2017’s Nappily Ever After, took her outside of the country narratively, Al Mansour returns to Saudi Arabia with The Perfect Candidate. A slice-of-life portrait of a young female doctor who decides to run for political office,