The Lady of Heaven

Filming for The Lady of Heaven began in August 2019 and continued through October of the same year in the cities of Tbilisi, Rustavi, and Vaziani.[1] The majority of filming took place in Vaziani and John Stephenson was brought on as a creative consultant.[2] Further filming also took place in London the following months. It took the production team over 2 months to build the sets for Mecca and Medina as imagined in 622 AD. Actors Denise Black, Ray Fearon, and Lucas Bond were brought on to act in the film and Chris Jarman was confirmed as portraying Bilal ibn Rabah, one of the companions of Muhammad.[3] In March 2021, LA based sales agent Hannibal Media acquired worldwide rights to the film.[4]

Per writer Al-Habib, in order to respect aniconism in Islam,[5] all holy figures were portrayed by light and cinematic effects as opposed to being portrayed by an actor or single individual.[6] In an interview with Deadline Hollywood the producers discussed how they tackled the very challenging aspect of depicting a Muslim holy personality.[7]

Fars News Agency has questioned the intent of the film, noting that "A number of renowned Islamic scholars have criticized the film for poor background research and inflammatory content."[13]

Ali Shamkhani also questioned the purpose of the film in his twitter.[14]

The Iranian government banned the film from being release in the country, calling it aimed at dividing Muslims.[15]

In the Marché du Film at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, the film's producers where interviewed by Deadline Hollywood's co-Editor-in-Chief, Mike Fleming Jr, in a panel discussion on International Storytelling in Modern Cinema. The producers spoke of bringing Lady Fatima's story to life and the challenges the team faced with depicting religious history.[16] The film received an award for Best Visual Effects at the iSuccess International Awards gala in an event hosted by Superfilm Studios in co-production with Forbes France.[17][18]

The Lady of Heaven was panned by critics. Beatrice Loayza of The New York Times called the movie "incredibly cheap", citing the "shoddy script and an overwhelming reliance on clichés".[19] Loayza also questioned the casting of Denise Black, a white English actress, as the mother of an Iraqi soldier before criticizing the smaller-than-expected role of Fatima in the movie. Dennis Schwartz gave the movie a grade of C. Schwartz buttressed this grade with the weak directing, confused storytelling, and heavy usage of clichés that the movie displayed.[20] Loayza and Schwartz shared a common criticism: the movie showed the faces of holy figures like Muhammad, but it hid the face of the eponymous Fatima, around whom the story seemed to revolve less than others such as Ali.

Zita Short of Keith Loves Movies countered this criticism with an explanation. Short asserted that there exists a tension between Fatima the human and Fatima the divine, making it "impossible to offer up a satisfactory rendering of Fatima as a human being".[21] In turn, Fatima became a multilayered personality whose significance is primarily seen by her effects on everyone around her. Short went on to praise the movie's uniqueness by contrasting it with The Message as well as its grand and larger-than-life production design, but Short ultimately rated the movie 61/100.

Roger Moore of Movie Nation gave the movie a rating of 2 out of 4 stars.[22] While Moore appreciated the impressiveness of CGI and the movie's uniqueness in a sea of religious movies, Moore downplays the film thanks to poor transitions between many different scenes, a big focus on battles in early Islam that Moore thought contradicted the movie's message, and muddled storytelling caused by "the many obstacles the production had to get around distracted one and all to the extent that they somewhat botched the messaging".

Sean Boelman of disappointment media rated the film 2/5.[23] He praised the movie's message. However, Boelman disliked the use of the flash-forward device, believing it transformed the film "from bland historical drama to emotionally cheap sermon". Other criticisms include apparent lack of knowledge of who the audience is, very fast pacing, dullness despite the film being packed with action, stiff dialogue, and low budget that made the movie feel cheap.

Sister Rose of Patheos complimented the movie's cinematography and noted the place Fatima holds in the hearts of Shia Muslims, suggesting she is a beacon of hope and peace in a violent world.[24] But Rose faulted the lack of character development, the mystery around Fatima, the British accent ubiquitous in similar films, and the violence that seemed to overshadow Fatima's role.

There were also Shia Muslim reviews. Syed Ali Imran of Iqra Online found the story to contain many apparent inaccuracies and have trouble explaining who exactly Fatima was and her connection to modern events pertaining to Islamic State.[25] Additionally, Imran criticized the improper introduction of characters, and he labeled the alleged connection between the companions and Islamic State as "extremely superficial analysis of early Islamic history". Haseeb Rizvi of The Muslim Vibe described the movie as "a deliberately divisive waste of $15 million" and "a poorly executed mess with bad scripting, acting and editing" as well as mediocre choice of accent.[26] However, Rizvi praised the cinematography and special effects. Both Imran and Rizvi accused Al-Habib of racism, specifically by showcasing Ali's opponents as black and evil with exaggerated features like discolored teeth as opposed to Ali's allies who were generally portrayed as white, good, and charming.