There’s a moment in Divines (2016), Houda Benyamina’s directorial debut, where a young woman stands in an empty auditorium, staring up at a stage she was never meant to occupy. She spreads her arms and twirls, imagining herself in the spotlight. The scene lasts only a few seconds, but it captures the film’s entire spirit—its restlessness, its hunger, its refusal to stay in its assumed place.
Set in the outskirts of Paris, Divines follows Dounia (Oulaya Amamra), a teenage girl navigating a life that feels predetermined: cramped apartments, dead-end jobs, and a system that sees her as a problem more than as a person. She and her best friend Maimouna (Déborah Lukumuena) dream of a better life, a more meaningful life, but their options are limited at best. School is a joke, work is exploitation, and success, as they understand it, means power. And power, in their world, belongs to drug dealers.
So, Dounia hustles. She sets her sights on Rebecca (Jisca Kalvanda), a local dealer who operates with the cold precision of an operator, and asks for a job. Rebecca is skeptical but impressed—Dounia is smart, resourceful, and, most importantly, fearless. What follows is a kinetic, often exhilarating crime story that feels like City of God (2002) filtered through the defiant energy of Girlhood (2014). Benyamina shoots Paris’s banlieues with a propulsive, almost breathless style—handheld camerawork, rapid cuts, and moments of unfiltered joy that make even the smallest victories feel monumental.
But Divines isn’t just about survival. It’s about the yearning for transcendence, for escape. For Dounia, that escape isn’t just money—it’s movement. She becomes fascinated with Djigui (Kévin Mischel), a dancer whose body defies gravity, his every step an act of defiance against the weight of oppression. In one of the film’s most striking sequences, Dounia watches him rehearse from the rafters, her breath catching. For once she's mesmerized by something that isn’t power; she’s mesmerized by beauty.
This is where Divines breaks from the usual coming-of-age crime story. We see teenage girls play gangsters with the depth of a Scorsese film. The movie doesn’t just critique the economic conditions that push Dounia toward crime—it mourns the alternative futures she never got to consider. It’s impossible to write about the third act without spoiling the film, but the skillful feint of the preceding acts makes it feel shocking, even if our rational brain knows it shouldn’t be. Divines is a warning, a protest, a battle cry. In its final moments, it tells us something crucial. Ambition for a better life isn’t a problem. The problem is the world we’ve built that limits the possibility of a better life.
Divines
Written by Houda Benyamina, Romain Compingt, and Malik Rumeau; Directed by Houda Benyamina
2016
105 minutes
French
Recommended way to watch (at time of publication): Streaming on Netflix
You’ll like this if you like: Girlhood (2014), City of God (2002)