Zain Al Rafeea gives Capernaum its angry centre and its most convincing tenderness. We rate that performance highly; the smaller roles that followed leave open the question of what he could do with a different kind of lead.
Fi1m perspective
In Capernaum (2018), Zain Al Rafeea plays a boy who has little reason to be impressed by adults. His anger seems a sensible response to what is happening around him, and we believe he has had to learn quickly how people behave. He is resilient without making hardship look character-building. That matters in a film which asks us to spend so much time with a child in distress. Al Rafeea gives Zain enough will of his own to keep him from becoming merely an object of pity.
Nadine Labaki gives him room to carry scenes through the force of his personality. For this breakthrough lead role, he improvised lines during a long shoot conducted in chronological order. That process helps explain why his responses feel so immediate, though the result should not be waved away as a child simply being himself. We can follow his suspicion of adults without losing sight of how vulnerable he is. He makes those feelings clear without tidying them into a reassuring portrait of a brave boy.
We were moved by his care for the baby, because the tenderness never makes the boy's anger seem less credible. Al Rafeea allows both feelings to belong to the same child, rather than presenting kindness as proof that he deserves our sympathy. Labaki is less restrained in the courtroom scenes, which press a point the performance has already made. It is a frustrating intrusion in a film with so persuasive a lead.
The parts that followed were smaller: a Mesopotamian young man in Eternals (2021), then Adam in The Sand Castle (2024). Those credits do not give us grounds to assume he can carry any kind of film, and we would rather leave the question open than invent a progression. A substantial role with less suffering built into it would tell us more than another part requiring this particular toughness. Begin with Capernaum for the actor, and be prepared for the courtroom.
Biography
Zain Al Rafeea is a Syrian actor. He is best known for his leading role as Zain in the 2018 Lebanese film Capernaum, directed by Nadine Labaki. The film won the Jury Prize at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.
Born on 10 October 2004 in Daraa, Syria, Al Rafeea moved with his family to Lebanon in 2012 as a refugee. He grew up in the slums of Beirut and had no prior acting experience when discovered by Labaki for the film. In 2018, he and his family relocated to Norway, where he began attending school in Hammerfest. He received a Norwegian passport.
Al Rafeea appeared as a Mesopotamian Young Man in the 2021 film Eternals and as Adam in the 2024 film The Sand Castle. For Capernaum, he won Best Actor at the 2018 International Antalya Film Festival and was nominated for the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Performance by an Actor.
