AllMovie

Writer/director Haifaa al-Mansour makes her feature directorial debut with this film about a headstrong 10-year-old girl named Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) who's determined to challenge a neighborhood boy to a bike race despite the potentially dire repercussions. When Wadjda's mother refuses to purchase her a bike, the young girl defiantly enters a Koran reading competition to earn the money she needs to buy it herself. Once Wadjda has her bike, the only thing left to do is prove to her young friend Abdullah that girls can race bikes just as well as boys. But not everyone is willing to accept a young girl who refuses to play by society's rules, and now the closer Wadjda gets to achieving her goal, the deeper her understanding of the division between the sexes grows.