Ramy – This

By: Aruba Bhuvad

Maysa (Hiam Abbass) is studying for her citizenship test as she waits to talk to the immigration lawyer (Neil Potter). According to the lawyer she is pretty much ready to go once she takes her citizenship test. Maysa tells him that she’s been studying on her phone, especially because her brother told her that the government listens to everything so she hopes they are listening to how right she is about everything. She’s eager to become a citizen after having a green card for so many years, especially because it will allow her to vote. She wants to protect the Supreme Court since Ruth Bader Ginsburg is so old and will die. Maysa tells the lawyer she prays for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and all the other good folks in the Supreme Court. And while she doesn’t wish ill will on the others, she doesn’t pray for them. 

In any case, Maysa’s transition into becoming a citizen should be a “real softball” according to the lawyer, the meaning of which he has to explain to Maysa who doesn’t understand what that means. As long Maysa stays out of trouble and nothing pops up on the police file, she will be fine. 

When she gets back in her car, she decides to give Lyft rides but opens the app to find out that her account has been temporarily suspended. Flustered, Maysa goes home and calls customer support. Apparently, one of her passengers filed a report and as a result her account was frozen. Maysa wants to know how many complaints she has and what they said but, of course, that information cannot be shared with her. The major concern she has is that the police will be called and it will go on a report. Because the word “investigation” was used during her phone call, Maysa gets extremely nervous as she believes it could potentially harm her citizenship application. 

Later that night Maysa has a nightmare with Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Mary Boyer) in it telling her it’s too late to do anything. She wakes up rattled and decides to do something about it, starting with asking for Dena’s (May Calamawy) help. Dena isn’t in the mood to assist since she is working on an essay for school and the only advice she has to offer is to tell Maysa to wait for Lyft to call back. But Maysa won’t have it. She wants to find out which passenger made the complaint and apologize to him/her. Considering the report had to be made by someone recently, Dena says that it’s probably someone from the last few days. Maysa runs through the details of her passengers and recalls one businesswoman she said was wearing a bad suit and had ugly hair. Another was a group of girls singing along to a “Lizard” song (Isa Barrett and Amelia Rose Allen). There was a Japanese woman (Josephine Huang) that helped her study during their drive and a guy named Omar (Jacob Anton) who was an Egyptian Arab working as a radiologist. She made sure to go out of her way to find out if he was single and then showed him a picture of Dena. When Dena asks to see what picture Maysa showed the guy she’s horrified to see a bad photo of her and isn’t even surprised the guy didn’t consider it for a second. 

Maysa then recalls another passenger she had by the name of Sophia (Maybe Burke). She tells Dena that she picked up a man that dresses like a woman, but didn’t identify as a man or a woman. In fact, Sophia kept asking Maya to use “they” when referring to them. Being ignorant of the situation, Maysa proceeds to ask Sophia if they were going to a costume party because of the dress they were wearing. Dena chimes in to tell Maysa that she was being really offensive. 

Unfortunately, Maysa did not stop there with the comments. She went on to mention Caitlyn Jenner and Sophia’s eyebrows after which Sophia put in headphones and chose to sit in silence for the rest of the ride. Dena angrily tries to explain that Maysa mis-gendered someone, which is like committing a crime. Assuming Sophia was the one that made the complaint, Maysa says she needs to find them and apologize. She remembers where Sophia lives so she’ll go wait outside until she can say sorry. 

Despite Dena’s advice not to go, Maysa goes anyway and waits outside Sophia’s house until nightfall and uses the time to study for her test in the meantime. Sophia steps out of the house with someone else and gets in a car so Maysa decides to follow them. They end up going to a bar, so Maysa goes in to talk to Sophia and apologizes for the misunderstanding. English is not her first language and in the process of explaining she says some more offensive things to Sophia, who is rather uncomfortable with the whole ordeal. 

Apparently, Sophia wasn’t the one who filed the complaint and points out to Maysa that if it wasn’t for the complaint Maysa would not have thought about Sophia twice. In the middle of their conversation Sophia’s boyfriend (Becca Blackwell) shows up and realizes that Maysa was the one who mis-gendered Sophia. He gets extremely angry and calls the cops because Maysa has been stalking them. 

Dena speaks with the cops and explains that Maysa is harmless. Luckily, Sophia and the boyfriend are not pressing charges against Maysa. When they get in the car Dena yells at Maysa saying that she didn’t have to say sorry, she just has to stop saying everything on her mind. There is a line between being honest and being mean and Maysa crosses it every time, hurting the people she’s talking to. She doesn’t have a filter, so Dena isn’t all that surprised that Maysa got reported. However, she is surprised it didn’t happen sooner. 

Maysa tells Dena that she is tough on herself, too. Whatever she says to others, she says those things to herself ten times more. Things like, “Maysa, instead of finishing your degree you got married to Farouk (Amr Waked).” She is proud of Dena and the independent person she is, something Maysa has always wanted to be. While studying for the citizenship test Maysa has felt so excited to learn and to feel important just like Dena, which finally warms Dena up to her mother and the struggles she’s going through.

Maysa is officially a citizen of the United States as she takes her oath alongside other new citizens. And in the middle of the oath she looks at a picture of President Trump and tells him off with all sorts of profanity as she promises that she will not be like him–and she is here to stay.