A frustratingly baby-steps contribution to a social justice conversation that is too important, and too intricate, to be boiled down to a mother’s-love-conquers-all bromide.

There are a few odd editing decisions, but the astonishing real-life twists keep up the momentum. And it’s hard not to be moved by this portrait of a woman who would stop at nothing to rescue her son.

A sluggish, dramatically and visually inert piece that not long ago – before the dividing lines between cinema and TV were irreversibly blurred – would have been considered very much a TV-style offering.

That's the beauty of Rabiye and this battle against the forces that be. The film sometimes feels like a Larry David comedy but so many of the scenes are entirely accurate, as a cautionary tale of political debauchery and governmental carelessness.