The Last Friday

When a 40-year-old divorced father discovers that he needs to undergo an operation which he cannot afford within the next 4 days, he is forced to deal with the life he isolated himself from for the longest time. Yousef (Ali Suliman), once a successful car salesman, is now a down-and-out taxi driver who lost his job, money, wife, and son to a poker game five years ago and is forced to work on a taxi as the economy crisis diminishes his chances of finding a better job. Imad (Fadi Arida) is a 14-year-old son lost between divorced parents living in different worlds, consumed with their own lives, and in the process neglecting their son’s needs and future. Dalal (Yasmin Al Massri) left Yousef after he lost his money and got married to a wealthy man, detaching herself from all emotions and her love for Yousef for the sake of a more prestigious, stable life. Yousef is now living alone in a rundown apartment in East Amman. Disconnected from his new reality and engulfed in the sadness of his loss, he is driven away from his son and from any meaningful and intimate relationship in his life. This refusal or denial of his new social status compels him into isolation from the world and the people around him. His quest to collect the money for the operation pushes him to interact and open old chapters in his life, discovering things he never expected to find. An estranged community where individualism controls behavior and relationships. A relationship void of any substance and of any humanity, but of a son who is still waiting for his father’s return. Each failed attempt to collect the money for the operation pushes him closer to the solution he is desperately trying to stay away from: playing poker–the cause of his downfall a few years earlier. ‘The Last Friday’ is a story of faith and luck, love and fear, and how we risk losing our way when we lose our dreams.—Rula Nasser