All That’s Left Of You (2025) Review: Palestinian Family Epic on Loss & Resilience

“All That’s Left of You” takes the burdens of historical tragedy and molds them into a sobering, generational story about the lasting implications of violence. It’s not the only film this year to analyze the conflict between Israel and Palestine, as its distributor Watermelon Pictures is also releasing the real-time drama “The Girl From Hind Rajab” and the fact-based epic “Palestine 36” for this year’s awards consideration. If the former is limited by its dramatic inertia and the later attempts to cover a very broad swath of time, “All That’s Left Of You” finds the right blend between overarching rage and intimate understanding. It is the story of how an entire people’s land was stolen from them, but it’s filtered through the eyes of a wounded family struggling to deal with a heartbreaking decision.

“All That’s Left Of You” begins with an engaging hook by showing a fateful day within the life of the Palestinian teenager Noor (Muhammad Abed Elrahman), whose youthful enthusiasm and strong sense of right-and-wrong leads him to join protests against occupation in 1988. Although Elrahamm is able to instantly create a likable protagonist within a short window of time, his story is quickly paused so that his mother, Hanan (Cherien Dabis), can explain the situation from the beginning. Even if it’s evidently clear that Noor was empowered by his family’s legacy to fight for his own freedom, the intention of “All That’s Left Of You” is to examine the root of this historical atrocity.

It’s through Hanan’s narration that the film charts back to the emergence of the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, where Noor’s grandfather Sharif (Adam Bakri), whose wholesome family life with his wife Munira (Maria Zreik) and children is disrupted by the first of many displacements. The pain of this moment isn’t just that Sharif is given the sobering options of restaining his family’s property or ensuring his children’s safety, but that Dabis (who also directed the film) has shown the precedent that this set. Sharif’s vulnerability was taken advantage of, and similarly decisions by other Palestinian families lead their homes to be captured and conquered by invaders who had no intention of ever seeing them free again. Moments like these, in which Dabis finds an identifiable instance of panic and apprehension within an established historical moment, are where “All That’s Left Of You” makes its approach to the conflict feel so lived-in.

Narration can often be a crutch, but the use of Hanan’s voice serves as a compelling way for both the character to speak truth to her own perspective and for Dabis, as a filmmaker, to buck any potential criticisms she may receive for her film. Although watching the violence that was committed against Noor is automatically horrific, it could also be debated by reactionary pundits who’d claim a “both sides” philosophy of unfettered blame. It’s because so many observers lack knowledge of the region’s history that it would be both dramatically ineffective and politically irresponsible for Dabis to simply showcase an upsetting moment of violence that is devoid of any context. What happened to Noor is a tragedy, but by following the roots of his family tree, Dabis shows why it should be considered a genocide.

The most effective chunk of the three-part narrative is easily the time spent with Bakri, whose performance as Sharif is both the film’s standout and perfectly paired with that of Mohammad Bakri, the legendary Palestinian actor who plays an older version of the same character. It’s gripping to watch Sharif’s identity slowly peeled away from him after indignities are suffered, as Dabis crafts immaculate historical detail with her production design and costuming. It’s also a narratively experimental segment that leads to a subversive, sobering explanation for why the Sharif that’s introduced many years later has been so key to forgetting the past. Although Dabis shows the physical damage and pillaging of resources that defined the occupationist movement, her most glaring indictment comes from depicting how Sharif’s proud, family-focused idealism gave way to ambivalence and fear.

Bakri’s section of the story doesn’t have the same crushing dramatic implications, but it does offer a compelling point of comparison with his son, Salim (Salah El Din), who was previously seen as an older version played by Saleh Bakri married to Dabis’ Hanan. Casting a real-life father-son duo in the two generations of Bakri men only enhanced the authenticity of the story, particularly when Dabis examines the historical precedent of repetition. Although “All That’s Left Of You” rarely turns to look outside of the region to examine the role of its passive neighbors, the similarities within the pain of these three men begs the question of how these atrocities would be allowed to continue.

The overwhelming immediacy of the segments centered on both Sharif and Salem are enough to suppress the inertia that comes from the revisiting of Noor’s story. It’s here where “All That’s Left Of You” has less space to examine the parameters of the situation, and thus descends into instances of melodrama. It’s also in this final act of the film where Dabis is most willing to examine the surrounding circumstances in a manner that lacks the same attention-to-detail that had made the film so compelling up until that point in the story. The lines between Dabis and Hanan begin to blur; Hanan wants to explain why her family’s trauma is representative of a larger issue, but it too often feels as if the character is merely an avatar for Dabis to recite her own rhetoric.

If its dramatic shortcomings are inevitably somewhat disappointing, “All That’s Left Of You” is able to strike the right blend between preservation and activism. While it was clearly made in an attempt to draw attention to the ongoing situation in the Gaza trip, the film’s storytelling doesn’t reek of reactionary messiness; this is a film that preserves a moment in time, and could feasibly be used to educate future generations. Dabis is clearly a filmmaker who is empowered by both her strong perspective on cultural history and an innate talent for finding humanity within the darkest of spaces, and “All That’s Left Of You” succeeds in being both thought-provoking and gripping.

Director: Cherien Dabis
Writer: Cherien Dabis
Cast: Saleh Bakri, Cherien Dabis, Adam Bakri
Language: Arabic, English
Runtime: 145

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