Movie Review - The Lawyer (2020)

The Syrian civil war, which began in 2011 and continues to this day, has had a global impact. One of those impacts has been on the refugee crisis. The situation was already precarious due to the conflicts in the Middle East like the Iraq War in 2003. So many people have had to flee Syria, escaping for their lives. It's estimated that around five million have been displaced to countries all over the map. About a million of them have been displaced in countries within Europe. Several documentaries have been released about the war and the subsequent refugees' journey to get out of Syria like Fire at Sea (2016), Last Men in Aleppo (2017) and For Sama (2019).

Nearly a decade since the start of the Syrian civil war, it makes sense that we're starting to get films and indeed narratives about refugees who are now in Europe and who are trying to make lives for themselves. It's not that dissimilar from films or even TV shows about immigrants who leave their homes for whatever reason. In the United States, there has been a rise in those stories, whether it's Mexican immigrants or Muslim ones. We've seen various. Many of which have been through the lens of first-generation immigrants in America. However, the Syrian refugee crisis is still relatively new, so those stories are rather fresh.

Eimutis Kvosciauskas stars as Marius, a corporate attorney working in Vilnius, the capital and largest city in Lithuania. In fact, he has a large office atop a fancy, high-rise building downtown. He clearly makes a lot of money because he also has a nice car and a nicer apartment that could be a penthouse with a great balcony. He's a young guy, but he's probably in his mid to late thirties, maybe early forties. He's also single. It doesn't take long to realize that he's gay. He seems to have certain preferences when it comes to whom he dates, which his friends criticize, but he seems content to meet and hook up with random guys online and not establish a long-term relationship. All of that changes when he suffers a death in the family.

Writer-director Romas Zabarauskas has directed several films prior to this and all of them involve a LGBTQ character. His debut film tackled the homophobia in his home country in Lithuania, which still persists to this day, but this film isn't really about the homophobia there. In a clever moment, the film tries to use homophobia as a way of benefiting a LGBTQ person, but that person doesn't want to appear as a victim, at least not for being who he is. In that, this film is a bit removed from documentaries like Alex & Ali (2016) and Welcome to Chechnya (2020), or from a HBO series like Years and Years (2019). It's not about gay persecution, not that Zabarauskas is ignoring such persecution but instead he's acknowledging how difficult a path that is for some refugees when they do acknowledge it.

Dogac Yildiz co-stars as Ali, the Syrian refugee in question. He meets Marius on a web site that seems like it's akin to OnlyFans. They video chat, but Marius pays to see and speak to Ali. Ali is currently at a refugee camp in Belgrade, Serbia. He wants to go to Berlin, but he's having trouble getting a visa or passport or any kind of documentation that would allow him to travel to other places. Right now, he's stuck and it's implied that he engages in sex work to survive. He identifies as bisexual, but his clients seem mostly to be men like Marius.

In that, their relationship would seem to be analogous to that of Richard Gere and Julia Roberts' characters in Pretty Woman (1990). The film invokes the idea of their relationship mirroring that of Cinderella and Prince Charming. However, both resist that comparison, as both come to realize that the fairy tale ending that both want won't come through magic and pure love. It might not even come through using Marius' abilities and knowledge of being an attorney. Instead, anything resembling a happy ending will come through the circumvention or cheating of the law.

As rare as an interracial, same-sex relationship, involving a Syrian refugee is in cinema, this is actually not the only one. 2019's Outfest LA gave us one such example, that of Kai Kreuser's short film, Label Me. However, Mikko Mäkelä's A Moment in the Reeds (2018) is the one that came to mind, during the middle section of this film. Mäkelä's film though felt more akin to Call Me By Your Name (2017) in its lushness, in its more romantic nature and especially in its embracing of its pastoral or rustic setting. The setting of this film embraces the mostly coldness, roughness or hardness of a city-scape. The cinematography reflects that blue, dreary and almost depressing look in the camerawork.

In fact, there are only a few times where the color scheme changes. Typically, the color scheme is the aforementioned dreary and depressing. However, Zabarauskas here and there infuses the film with warm and even passionate red colors at times of warmth and passion between Marius and Ali. It really underlines how the characters have to find those moments or pockets of warmth and passion, or sensuality, even among all the cold and roughness.

Advokatas.
Not Rated but contains graphic nudity and sexual situations.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 37 mins.

Available on Dekkoo.