4 Daughters, the searing documentary from the twice-Oscar-nominated Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, is assured to make you weep—however what makes this creative, heart-rending drama much more exceptional is that it’s additionally concurrently one of the vital joyous and life-affirming releases of the final yr.

It facilities on Olfa, a heat, humorous, world-weary mom of 4, whose life has been upended by tragedy—years earlier, we be taught, her two eldest daughters, Rahma and Ghofrane, had been radicalized, and left their household behind in Tunisia to hitch the Islamic State in Libya. She, alongside together with her two youngest, Eya and Tayssir, are bereft and unable to course of this unimaginable loss.

From this level onwards, you would possibly suppose that you may guess what comes subsequent: a collection of speaking heads—from the household to authorities officers, reporters and different eyewitnesses—piecing collectively the story of the 2 older sisters and setting it within the political context of the Arab Spring and the whole lot that adopted. Nevertheless, the director, ingeniously, swerves this extra typical strategy. As an alternative, she casts two actors, Nour Karoui and Ichraq Matar, to play the absent sisters, and one other, Hend Sabry, to embody their mom in scenes which are too painful for the true Olfa to recreate herself.

The impact is each thrilling and unsettling, and leads to one thing splendidly and achingly authentic: Olfa speaks to us whereas we see Sabry moving into character and adopting her voice; and when the mom and daughters meet the 2 younger ladies who’ll take the place of Rahma and Ghofrane, they’re each elated and heartbroken. As they educate them in regards to the lacking women they’ll be enjoying—their passions, their humor, their ever-changing tastes in vogue—they develop shut and, finally, develop into a sort of makeshift household. We see Eya and Tayssir’s faces gentle up, and their reverence for his or her sisters be transplanted onto their new pals–however we additionally know {that a} actual reunion will probably by no means happen.