Plot
Ahmed is a teenaged Muslim living with his family in Seraing. Recently, under the influence of his imam Youssouf and the death of a cousin, who was a devout Muslim, Ahmed has not only made Islamic practice central to his life but adopted an extreme interpretation of the Quran. This change has not escaped the notice of Madame Inès, a fellow Muslim and teacher at Ahmed’s school who provides extra attention to him given his dyslexia.
Inès proposes adding Arabic instruction through music to help students expand their practical vocabulary and holds a community meeting to discuss this. Youssouf tells Ahmed and his brother Rachid that she is an apostate and blasphemer intent on bringing down Islam as a religion and convinces them to join the meeting. During the meeting, the attendees are divided when the brothers claim that Inès’ decision will cause Islam to vanish and accuse her of not caring because her new boyfriend is Jewish. Pressed further, they do not answer and leave.
Inès finds Ahmed with Youssouf and offers to reconcile with the former; he appears unmoved. However, after prayer, Ahmed makes preparations to assassinate her. Gaining entry into Inès’ apartment building, Ahmed hides in the stairwell, waiting for her to appear. When she sees him, he makes his attempt but fails. Escaping to Youssouf’s, the imam divests himself of any responsibility for the incident, refuses to hide him, compels him to accept his punishment, and gives him a scripted answer for the police’s questions to protect their mosque.
Ahmed is confined to a juvenile detention center but he is uncomfortable with the supportive atmosphere and rejects farmwork offered to him. His mother visits, revealing that Inès wants to meet him, but he refuses. She also shares that Rachid testified against Youssouf and the latter has been arrested, but he remains firm in his ideological conviction, causing her to break down in tears and implore him to change.
Some time later, Ahmed requests farmwork again and calls his mother, telling her that he is willing to meet Inès but the psychologist needs to meet him first. Following a meeting with the psychologist where he expresses his belief that a meeting with Inès will help him to understand the nature of his assassination attempt, Ahmed writes a letter to his mother, asking for forgiveness as he strives to fulfill his duty as a true Muslim, but as he is escorted to meet Inès, he disguises it as a list of requests to be given to his mother. Prior to the meeting, he goes to the bathroom and hides a ballpoint pen in his sock. As Inès enters the room, Ahmed reaches for it but she breaks down at the sight of him and exits before he can act. As Ahmed leaves the meeting, he has the letter returned to him and is encouraged to continue farmwork.
The farm is owned by a family with a caucasian teenage daughter named Louise. She quickly develops romantic interest in Ahmed and during a break in work, kisses him against his will. He is taken aback and obliges with another kiss. However, he ultimately refuses to continue and apologizes for his premarital intimate contact during prayer. Before leaving, he asks Louise whether she will convert to Islam to atone for his sin; she will not. Just as he is about to leave the compound, he finds Louise again and confronts her in a hayloft, asking her why she will not become a Muslim if she is attracted to him. She claims that she will not be forced and when he asks if she intends to prevent him from entering Heaven, she bluntly tells him that it does not exist, leading him to push her onto the hay and leave for good.
On the drive back to the detention center, Ahmed complains of feeling too hot. Getting permission from his caseworker to remove his seatbelt to take off his jacket, he uses the opportunity to open the car door and escape into the nearby woods. After losing the caseworker, he rides a bus to Inès’ school. There, he finds the doors locked, so he scales walls to enter through a window. However, in his efforts, he pulls something fixed to a wall off of it, the momentum causing him to fall to the ground. Though almost immobilized and in great pain, Ahmed manages to move his body close to a metal fence and remove a metal tool from his jacket, with which he uses to strike the fence repeatedly. Inès hears the noise and runs out to find him, offering to call an ambulance. As she prepares to return to the schoolhouse to do so, Ahmed asks Inès to forgive him. She nods and holds his hand with hers briefly before going back into the building.
