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In This World

In This World

Drama · 2003

Torn straight from the headlines, Michael Winterbottom's compelling and prescient 'In This World' follows young Afghan Jamal and his older cousin Enayat as they embark on a hazardous overland trip from their refugee camp at Peshawar, north-west Pakistan. Entering Turkey on foot through a snowy, Kurdish-controlled pass, the pair again take their lives into their hands and face suffocation when they are locked in a freight container on a ship bound for Italy. From there they plan to travel on to Paris, the Sangatte refuge centre and ultimately asylum in London.

Movie details

In This World

“The journey to freedom has no borders.”

2003 Drama 1h 28m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

7.3 / 10

4.5K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

89 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

75 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.2 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

Torn straight from the headlines, Michael Winterbottom's compelling and prescient 'In This World' follows young Afghan Jamal and his older cousin Enayat as they embark on a hazardous overland trip from their refugee camp at Peshawar, north-west Pakistan. Entering Turkey on foot through a snowy, Kurdish-controlled pass, the pair again take their lives into their hands and face suffocation when they are locked in a freight container on a ship bound for Italy. From there they plan to travel on to Paris, the Sangatte refuge centre and ultimately asylum in London.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over In This World?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Where it lives

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Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.

Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Michael Winterbottom

Written by

Tony Grisoni

J

Jamal Udin Torabi

Jamal

E

Enayatullah

Enayat

I

Imran Paracha

Travel Agent (Pakistan)

H

Hiddayatullah

Enayat's Brother (Pakistan)

J

Jamau

Enayat's Father (Pakistan)

W

Wakeel Khan

Enayat's Uncle 1 (Pakistan)

L

Lal Zarin

Enayat's Uncle 2 (Pakistan)

Court is in session

Put In This World on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Adrenaline Seeker

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.