Melha Bedia, whom Amazon Prime Video viewers already know for her role in the very bad film Forte, co-created, co-directed and played the heroine of Miskina, a semi-autobiographical series. A real success of Prime Video (number one on the platform), Miskina still has flaws. A bit like all the roles of Melha Bedia. The actress does not necessarily shine. It’s not the first time that she has struggled to be a good actress when on stage she is a woman who has an astonishing presence. Miskina’s biggest flaw is that she never gets to the heart of her own subjects and only touches on them. Sexuality, spirituality, the body, etc. nothing is really dug despite the more than interesting potential of all these subjects. And to fill this void, Miskina therefore prefers the easy valve to something more worked. The idea that all the valves are so predictable does not allow you to completely get caught up in the game.
Miskina is the story of Fara, 30 years old. Without an apartment, without a job, without a guy, but with strong myopia. When your grandmother, your mother and your sister are on your ribs H24, it’s time to wake up and make choices. Between her best friend who is perhaps the man of her life and this new guy a little perched who falls in love with her. Between sparing his mother still stuck on the past and reconnecting with his father. Between constantly veiling the face and finally facing the truth. When life keeps slapping you, you have to take charge and stop being a “miskina”.
Perhaps Miskina should have focused on less miscellaneous topics in order to take only one topic. Wanting to talk about everything, Miskina ends up not saying much. It’s not necessarily helped by the damn bland staging, so flat that a lot of scenes go by the wayside. The approximate side of certain moments, lacking depth, does not particularly allow to be touched either. In particular by the faith of our heroine who could have just transcended her own subject and gone beyond the usual shackles. Spirituality is a complex subject and the series does not exploit it to its fair value. Miskina therefore has a whole host of ambitions but if she wants too much, indulgence can sometimes be a waste. Miskina still has qualities and especially in the precept of departure. It’s an easy series, too easy, but which nevertheless has the merit of making you want to go to the end of its story (and make you want to see a season 2).
Melha Bedia struggles to embody her character. Certainly inspired by his own experience, his character does not always take off. In particular because the actress is not necessarily comfortable with the exercise of actress. I’m sure Miskina would have been much better with someone else in character. This colorful character has so much potential that remains underexploited that the result is not necessarily what I expected. The writing sometimes remains approximate, thus leaving on the side of the road some jokes which could have been surprising. Miskina therefore has real untapped potential, hidden behind a visual misery and a cast that is not always up to par. I was delighted to see a French series a little blue flower which dares interesting questions in particular on the company and on the perception of the faith but it is much too winded to have its effect, stuffed with clichés (in particular on Islam) that we are not going to change society with that. We are far from the initial promise, that of cultural mixing that knows how to make fun of everything. Too wise to be sassy, too warped to be funny.
Rating: 4.5/10. In short, if Miskina has good times to show you, it’s not really thanks to her badly embodied heroine but rather by all the characters who revolve around her and who are for once the sun of the series. The humor is often barely there, hiding a subject brushed on the surface and never really dug.
Available on Amazon Prime Video