Desert Flower

Sherry Horman's biopic of supermodel and activist Waris Dirie (Kebede) alternates among horrible atrocities (forced genital mutilation when she was a child), shattering setbacks (fleeing an arranged marriage in Somalia) and out-of-nowhere triumphs (being discovered by a famed photographer at a London fast-food joint, addressing the U.N. on female circumcision). More earnest than agile, the whole thing smacks of heavy-handed authorial jiggering---never mind that it's based on a true story. Dirie's ability to rise above her tragic circumstances is duly celebrated, but what about the thousands of Somali refugees who suffer and aren't leggy and beautiful?

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