Netflix’s Crashing Eid is a beautiful, intricately woven tapestry of stories that epitomise brown culture to the letter: the good, the bad and the judgmental.
Crashing Eid starts with two seemingly doomed, culturally crossed lovers: London-born Pakistani Sameer and Saudi Arabian Razan. Razan and Sameer meet when Razan worked as an academic researcher at an unknown University in London.
Like any series, you have to weather the first episode – the set-up for the story. It’s easy to dismiss it as a typical, English-language dubbed, and predictable love story.
I didn’t expect the refreshing take on modern Saudi Arabia, the blended family dynamic, navigating two cultures with awkward racial nuances that mixed-race couples often endure in their relationships.
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Razan and Sameer
Razan is an unapologetic alpha female, the black sheep among 50 shades of brown. She is a divorcee after an arranged marriage with her cousin didn’t end well. We learn later in the series why she fled to London post-divorce.
Sameer was born to Pakistani immigrants in London and is just the right animal for Razan. He is a man obviously smitten, although why he didn’t propose first is a mystery all women would like to uncover, so the jury is still out on that one.
He comes across as excited by Razan’s bold sense of independence and possesses a sweet disposition and temperament that can calm his fiery girlfriend. Also irresistible is the way Sameer becomes the dad who steps up to father a teenage girl.
The main storyline is about how the culturally crossed lovers bridge the differences with their respective families.
The awkward, cringe-worthy racial undertone about him being Pakistani and perhaps of lower class pepper the entire mini-series.
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WATCH: Netflix’s Crashing Eid, the trailer
Mother-daughter dynamics and navigating divorce
One thing that stuck out for me was that this series is based on a typical middle-class Saudi family. But Saudi’s version of the middle class looks way more economically empowered than the level of the middle class we see reflected across its BRICS counterparts.
Crashing Eid showcased beautiful Saudi properties with ample kitchen, dining and living space complete with a pool. In South Africa, the middle class is a two-income household in a matchbox, and a pool is an item of luxury.
But enough about how Saudi’s middle class outshines us; I found the fearless storytelling about divorce and blended family social dynamics particularly refreshing.
Razan’s mother is your typical brown mum who loves her children so much that no one outside the family will ever be good enough for her daughter. That mother-daughter dynamic is put through the wringer when Razan’s mother has to mend the fence with her own sister after their children’s divorce.
The show also touches on how it was perfectly acceptable for Razan’s ex-husband to remarry and have children, while Razan’s choices are nitpicked through the racially limiting lens of prejudice and social construct.
We also see the painful experiences children navigate when their parents split. Razan’s teenage daughter Lamar finds herself ostracised by her heavily religious father, who disapproves of his ex-wife’s modern approach to Muslim tradition.
Lamar also transcends from blaming her mother for the divorce to empathising with her parent’s marriage struggles and reconciling how the new partners complement her parents.
Rating 9/10
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