Saudi artist Daniah Alsaleh: ‘We can celebrate tradition, but we really need to be open to change’ 

‘Hinat.’ (Supplied) 
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Updated 11 October 2024
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Saudi artist Daniah Alsaleh: ‘We can celebrate tradition, but we really need to be open to change’ 

  • The Saudi artist discusses some of her favorite works and their common themes 

DUBAI: “I call myself a visual artist that focuses on social conditioning and memory.” That’s Saudi artist Daniah Alsaleh’s ‘elevator pitch.’ But, like all such handy soundbites, it fails to convey the complexity and ambition of her layered, multimedia works, which have seen her land several prestigious residencies and awards, including the 2019 Ithra Art Prize. 

For someone whose work has made such an impression on so many, Alsaleh took quite some time to convince herself she was ready to present that work, which at the time was largely influenced by Islamic geometry, to the world.  

“I was interested in art from a young age, but I never really had the opportunity — I went to school and university in Riyadh, where I was born,” Alsaleh tells Arab News. “It was when I moved to Jeddah that I really got into art. I studied at the atelier of Safeya Binzagr, who recently passed away, for probably five, six years. That’s how I really learned the basics of drawing, painting, color theory, shape and form. Then, every time I had the chance to travel abroad, I would take courses in paintings and life drawings. I got hooked on Islamic geometry, and then — after all these years of learning arts, probably around 10 years, I had the confidence to actually finish artworks.” 

Her first show was a group exhibition in 2012. “No one knew who I was, but a lot of the people asked about my work,” she says. In 2013, she joined the roster of artists at Athr Gallery. Now, she says, “it was getting serious,” and she decided to become a full-time artist. In 2014, she moved to London. 

“I decided to apply for a Master’s in Fine Art at Goldsmiths. I didn’t get in but they offered me a place on another program, which was called Computational Arts and that changed my practice completely, 180 degrees,” she says. “This program catered for artists with no background in technology and we were taught how to use physical computing to create installations, and coding as well — like processing and frameworks. I really got hooked. Machine learning resonated with me — we don’t call it AI, we call it machine learning; it’s a program that learns. It changed my practice completely from Islamic geometry to a more contemporary way of expressing myself.  

“I’m not an AI artist. I’m a visual artist,” she continues. “I have machine learning in my toolbox, next to my paints and next to my canvas and next to my videos and next to my audio files and next to my photos. And depending on the context, I just choose which tool I want to use.” 

As suggested by her elevator pitch, that context usually involves exploring our relationship with memory and media.  

“I’m interested in social conditioning in the everyday — things that we take at face value, things that we take for granted,” she says. “These things that we habitually do, where do they come from? And usually I look at media and how that affects us; how it affects our memory, what stays and what gets erased. And how we reprogram our memories, sometimes, just from looking at content on social media. So that’s really what my interest is.” 

Here, Alsaleh talks us through some of her most significant works. 

‘Restitution’ 

This is an example of my older work. It’s from 2017. You see this perfectly organized structure — five panels of hand-drawn Islamic patterns — but then there’s this random brushstroke across them all. That’s my intervention. It’s a commentary on how we are very hooked on celebrating tradition and practices. We can celebrate and appreciate history and tradition, but, at the same time, we really need to be open to change — accepting new things and new ideas. 

‘Sawtam’ 

This artwork — an audio-visual installation — was a big transition for me; a big jump from my paintings. It was created while I was still doing my Master’s, and it’s the piece that won the Ithra Art Prize in 2019. It addresses forms of expression. The visuals were inspired by Manfred Mohr, a German new-media artist who created similar images based on algorithms in the Sixties, and they move or vibrate every time the sound comes out. There were sounds coming from every screen — the pronunciation of the Arabic letters — and when you put them all together in one space, it’s like a cacophony of noise. It’s a commentary on how communication sometimes gets lost, or sometimes gets through. It has a lot of meanings, and it’s very layered, but it’s basically about communication and forms of expression.  

‘That Which Remains’ 

This is a large installation I did for the first edition of the Diriyah Biennale. Again, it’s about memory: collective memory versus individual memory. Collective memory is where we remember things in monuments and celebrations — like National Days. That’s where our collective memory is. But within individual memories, a lot of things get lost, especially when there’s a lot of development and change. So, it’s a — very gentle — commentary about what we’re witnessing and experiencing in Saudi Arabia right now: the individual memories of these characters on the cylinders, which are the buildings and the houses and the structures that are being developed and changed.  

The faces on the cylinders are machine-generated. They’re deep fakes. I collected my own data sets of faces, and then trained the machine to learn to create new faces for me. And then I took those new faces and transferred them onto the cylinders. The paintings are inside-out, so when the cylinder is lit, you can see these shadows of these faces. And then people who visit say, ‘Oh, she resembles my aunt, this resembles my uncle’ and so on. They might resemble them, because they have Saudi or Gulf aesthetics, and the machine learns what you focus on. So if my data set focuses on a certain aesthetic, that’s what it creates. But these people never existed. 

‘Evanesce’ 

This was actually based on my degree show at university. I have two identities: The Western identity and the Gulf identity. And whenever I’m in the West, the news is so different from the news you see in the Middle East. Like, since the Iraq War, all the images you see about Iraq are destruction and war and poverty and craziness and explosions and guns. But what I know about Iraq is culture and arts and literature and science. So for my degree show I collected all these images, Iraqi images, from the 40s, 50s and 60s, for the machine-learning program and created these new images with, like old photo aesthetics. But they’re all deep fakes. And “Evanesce” is a continuation of this research, but focused on the Golden Age of Egyptian cinema. I watched a lot of Egyptian movies, and I collected 15 tropes that are repeated in most of them — the extravagant stairways, the cars, answering the old classical telephone, the belly dancer, the family gathering over breakfast, the chaos in the morning, the protagonists and their friends, the embrace and the romance, the palm trees and the close up of certain buildings. I created data sets based on each trope, and then each data set was trained on a machine-learning program. So then I had 15 outputs of this machine learning based on these tropes, which I stitched together to create this 10-minute film. And this morphing from one image to the other that you see in the video just resembles how we remember things. Again, it’s a commentary about social conditioning. These movies are so prevalent and so important in the MENA region within conservative societies, but the images on screen really contradicted their culture and their values. So it’s a commentary on how, as a society, we watch these things that really contradict our belief system and tradition. But there’s some sort of… it’s similar to obsession. These movie stars and these movies were an obsession to a lot of people within conservative countries. It’s instilled in the collective memory and still resonates to this day. These movies spread from North Africa to the Middle East, to lots of regions where there are a lot of conservatives. So there’s a lot of tension and contradiction between these two worlds. 

‘Hinat’ 

This is an important piece for me. It was created during a residency I had in AlUla in 2022. It’s based on this Nabatean woman — Hinat — who has a tomb in (Hegra). That was very inspiring to me. Obviously, she was from a very prominent family, because she was wealthy enough to have a tomb for herself, and it was under her name. This installation is made up of collages of different views of AlUla and I cut out rectangles on each canvas, and I projected videos into the rectangles. These videos are inspired by Hinat, imagining her future generations, from her bloodline, living in AlUla and roaming around across these landscapes. And the videos were created by machine learning. I hired three ladies from AlUla. We went to different locations and got them to wear these different colorful fabrics. The we shot videos and created data sets from each video, and then trained the program, and it created these very ghostly, abstract figures that move across these landscapes. 

‘E Proxy’ 

This was part of a solo show I did in 2023. It’s a video in which a face morphs into an emoji and then morphs back into a face. It’s a commentary about the ubiquity of emojis and the way we express ourselves in emoticons and pictograms. It’s interesting to me and it’s important. You can’t express our range of emotions in, like, 10 or 20 smileys. It’s just so restrictive. So, what’s happening there? I’m not giving an answer, but I’m opening up a space for questioning ourselves. And, listen, I’m a big advocate of emojis — they help me save time. But I’m asking what is happening here: Is it conditioning us into being less expressive? Or are we conditioning it to be a tool to help us express ourselves? There is this duality. I mean, there’s no correct point of view; it’s very subjective. But it’s always worth raising these questions. 

‘The Gathering’ 

This was the result of another residency I did, supported by the French Embassy in Saudi Arabia, with Catherine Gfeller, a French-Swiss artist. We wanted to know who are the females that are living in Riyadh — not necessarily Saudis — as it goes through this explosion of art and culture and infrastructure. I was born and raised in Riyadh — I live in Jeddah now, but I know Riyadh very well, and I’ve seen the changes. And I’m just in awe and disbelief at what I’m seeing. So, to cut a long story short, we did an open call, and there were 37 ladies who participated who came from 11 different countries — different backgrounds, different generations, different professions. We interviewed them and videoed those interviews, and my focus was on the emotional side of things: How do you deal with loneliness in a big city? What does love mean to you? What about resentfulness? How about forgiveness? Then the audio of the interviews kind of fades in and out. I put them all together as though we’re sharing our thoughts and emotions — a female gathering. And the videos were all manipulated by AI as well; it’s a layered effect, and it’s referencing the different aspects of emotion that we go through.  

‘36’ 

This was part of the same project as “The Gathering.” It’s a composite of the faces of all the women who took part, except for one lady who refused to take off her niqab, so I couldn’t include her in this image. I don’t think this was a new idea — I bet it’s been done many times before — but what I wanted was a commentary on… faced with this perception of what Saudi Arabia is and what Riyadh is and who the women there are… actually, it’s a multicultural city with diverse backgrounds. And when you see this image, you don’t know where the ‘person’ comes from, what their ethnic background is, among other things. You can think of many things when you look at that image.  


Bella Hadid’s Orebella named conscious brand of the year

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Bella Hadid’s Orebella named conscious brand of the year

DUBAI: Ulta Beauty — one of the largest beauty retailers in the US — has awarded Bella Hadid’s fragrance brand, Orebella, its prestigious “conscious brand of the year” title, recognizing the label’s commitment to clean ingredients, ethical practices and sustainable packaging.

Hadid took to Instagram to announce the news with her followers. “Thank you to our Ulta Beauty family for recognizing our commitment to creating a healthy daily ritual for all,” she wrote.

Hadid went on to share the criteria that helped Orebella to earn the title, noting that the brand meets Ulta’s guidelines across several categories. These include clean ingredients — excluding parabens, phthalates and more than 20 other substances on Ulta’s “Made Without” list.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by Orebella (@orebella)

Orebella goes further, she said, banning more than 1,300 ingredients in line with EU standards.

She also emphasized that the brand is certified cruelty-free by PETA and Leaping Bunny, and is entirely vegan, formulated without any animal products or byproducts. In addition, all Orebella packaging is recyclable, refillable or made from recycled or bio-sourced materials, including its line of perfumes.

Hadid also highlighted Orebella’s philanthropic efforts, explaining that the brand’s Alchemy Foundation donates at least 1 percent of domestic net sales to causes “close to our hearts.”

The alcohol-free scents of Orebella, which launched in 2024, were Hadid’s answer to traditional perfumes.

Hadid wrote on her website: “For me, fragrance has always been at the center of my life — helping me feel in charge of who I am and my surroundings,” she said. “From my home to nostalgic memories, to my own energy and connection with others, scent has been an outlet for me. It made me feel safe in my own world.

“Through my healing journey, I found that I was extremely sensitive to the alcohol in traditional perfumes — both physically and mentally — it became something that was more overwhelming than calming to me,” she added. “That is the main reason I wanted to find an alternative, so essential oils became an artistic and experimental process for me.”

She started growing lavender on her farm, walking through the garden every morning and learning about her family’s tradition of making homemade scents. “I realized I might have a calling in this. I found healing, joy and love within nature’s scents,” she said.


Pakistani films attracted ‘biggest’ Eid collections in 5 years, says largest cinema chain

Updated 13 June 2025
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Pakistani films attracted ‘biggest’ Eid collections in 5 years, says largest cinema chain

  • Pakistani films ‘Love Guru’ and ‘Deemak’ led box office collections surge this Eid Al-Adha, says Cinepax Cinemas sales head
  • Love Guru’s team says flick generated $676,500 during first five days, Deemak distributor says movie collected $142,000

KARACHI: Pakistani films that released on the Eid Al-Adha last week attracted the highest Eid box office collections in five years, the sales and marketing head of the country’s largest cinema chain said on Friday.

Pakistani romantic comedy ‘Love Guru,’ starring acting powerhouses Humayun Saeed and Mahira Khan released in cinemas worldwide on Eid-ul-Adha. The other prominent Pakistani movie that released in theaters across the world was “Deemak,” a horror movie with A-list actors Faysal Qureshi, Sonya Hussyn and Samina Peerzada starring in lead roles.

As per official figures released by Love Guru, the Pakistani film collected Rs 12.8 crores [$457,143] in Pakistan during the first three days of Eid Al-Adha, making it the biggest ever Eid weekend opener in the country.

“If we look at Eid [film] business since Covid, we did the biggest business this year [on Eid],” Adnan Ali Khan, the sales and marketing head of Cinepax Cinemas, told Arab News. “Meaning highest in five years.”

He said this does not include The Legend of Maula Jatt film, which enjoyed record-breaking box office business but was not released on Eid.

People gather outside cinema hall at the Cinepax, Jinnah Park in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on June 10, 2024, during Eid Al-Adha celebrations in Pakistan. (Photo courtesy: Azadar Kazmi)

“Love Guru got 50 percent of the shows and that is why it generated huge numbers,” Khan explained, adding that Deemak was the second-best performing film on Eid while Hollywood flick “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina” secured the third-highest collections.

The film’s official team announced that its international box office collections for the opening weekend surged to Rs15.4 crores [$546,000]. This means the film raked in a total of Rs28.2 crores [$999,186] in the first three days of the release.

After the first five days of their release, Love Guru’s team said it collected Rs19.10 crores [$676,500] locally while Deemak distributor Nadeem Mandviwalla said the horror flick generated around Rs4 crores [$142,000] at the box office.

Mandviwalla said the film is expected to secure over Rs7 crores [$248,000] in box office collections by the end of this week.

“It is a very encouraging figure for Deemak,” Mandviwalla said.

However, there have been speculations around the authenticity of these figures, particularly at the local box office. There hasn’t been an official detailed division of box office collections in cinemas across Pakistan.

Pakistani film critic Kamran Jawaid, however, brushed aside claims that Love Guru’s box office collections were fabricated.

‘ONLY FOR THE DELUDED’

“When the audience comes out of cinemas in droves at seven in the morning— and that too from multiple shows— then countering claims about fabricated figures is only for the deluded,” Jawaid told Arab News.

He said the high footfall in cinemas across the country puts to rest the opinion that attendances at cinemas are too low due to expensive ticket prices or that audiences no longer harbor interest in Pakistani movie.

“One just has to make movies that people are willing to shell money out on, whether it is Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning, which also ran shows till morning two weeks before Eid, or Love Guru,” Jawaid said.

The Pakistani film critic broke down the numbers based on the number of screens and seating capacity of Pakistani cinemas.

People gather outside cinema hall at the Cinepax, Jinnah Park in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on June 10, 2024, during Eid Al-Adha celebrations in Pakistan. (Photo courtesy: Azadar Kazmi)

“Although not big, counting all 91 screens, Pakistan’s total seating capacity is a little above 21,000, which equates to 21 million in ticket sales per show/slot, with an average ticket price of a thousand,” he said.

“An average of four shows per day leads to 84 million in gross income. Depending on the number of screens a film like Love Guru gets — which is roughly between 30-40 percent of the country — per-day estimates range between 25 to 33 million in gross receipts,” Jawaid explained.

“Given that the tickets are selling hot, one cannot refute the legitimacy of the quoted figures.”

Khan said the movies garnered the highest numbers at its cinemas in Packages Mall in Lahore, followed by Jinnah Park in Rawalpindi.

“We are running late night shows every day,” Khan said, adding that the coming weekend was also expected to feature “packed” theaters as the cinemas have bookings in advance.

“We need four Pakistani movies like Love Guru every year,” he said. “However, Deemak has started gaining momentum now alongside Love Guru.”

Jawaid, however, looked toward the future of Pakistani cinema.

“Pakistan’s cinema needs one Love Guru a month to revive audience’s interest,” he said.


‘Ocean’ — bleak indictment of mankind offers a glimmer of hope

Updated 13 June 2025
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‘Ocean’ — bleak indictment of mankind offers a glimmer of hope

  • David Attenborough’s latest documentary is a vital, compelling call to action

JEDDAH: “Ocean with David Attenborough” was released regionally on Disney+ on June 8 — World Ocean Day. It hit cinemas in May, on the 99th birthday of its venerable and venerated presenter, the famed biologist and broadcaster.

Like all Attenborough-fronted nature docs, “Ocean” is gorgeously shot and an immersive viewing experience. But while the vast majority of his output leaves you speechless at the on-screen beauty, “Ocean” also strikes you dumb at the horrifying devastation wrought on the open seas by the 40,000+ super-sized fishing trawlers operating around our planet constantly.

Sweeping the seabed with their giant nets, these ships commit slaughter on an unimaginable scale, leaving little alive in their rapacious search for a few specific species that humans actually eat. In their wake they leave something akin to the dystopian portrayals of a nuclear winter in post-apocalyptic dramas. These grim, heart-breaking shots are interspersed with glorious, vibrant scenes of what a healthy seabed should look like — towering forests of kelp, sea meadows, abundant diverse communities of extraordinary marine life… A reminder of what we are destroying every minute of every day.

Attenborough lays out for us with all of his trademark passion and authority just what is at risk here. The seas, he stresses, are vital for the survival of humankind. And humankind is putting the seas in terrible jeopardy. Marine ecosystems are delicately balanced and linked in complex, subtle ways that we are only now beginning to understand. And industrial fishing is far from subtle. As Attenborough notes, if rainforests were being razed at this rate, the protests would be global and furious. But because this destruction takes place miles below the surface of the water, it goes mainly unnoticed. Incredibly, this mindless, untargeted carnage is not illegal; it is positively encouraged — and heavily subsidized — by many governments. 

Thankfully, there is hope. Attenborough reveals that scientists have discovered that — if left alone through the imposition of “no-take zones” — the oceans can recover at an incredible rate, and the most barren of sea floors can once again flourish in just a few years. There is now an international pact to turn one-third of Earth’s seas into no-take zones by 2030. And if this does happen — note the if — then there’s a good chance that man-made damage can be reversed not just in the water, but on land, as sea life is, it turns out, extremely adept at reducing carbon. The sea could save the world.

As nature documentaries go, it’s hard to imagine “Ocean” being bettered (except perhaps for the distracting clichéd mishmash that serves as its soundtrack, which deserves to be classified as a man-made disaster itself). This is a compelling, vital and urgent narrative delivered by an expert scientist and broadcaster accompanied by awe-inspiring, mind-boggling cinematography showing us wonders that most of us will never come close to seeing first-hand. And it lays out a path for survival. Whether we actually take that path...


Streaming successes: What’s coming to your screens later this year 

Updated 13 June 2025
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Streaming successes: What’s coming to your screens later this year 

  • From stressed-out cooks to foul-mouthed spymasters, the must-see shows still to come in 2025 

‘Squid Game’ season 3 

Starring: Lee Jung-jae, Lee Byung-hun, Wi Ha-joon 

Where: Netflix  

When: June 27 

The final season of the South Korean survival thriller about a game show where the rewards are enormous but loss means death, Seong Gi-hun (or player 456, as you might know him) and his friends must fight for survival in ever-more fiendish challenges. The VIPs — the wealthy individuals who fund the games — return to the island once again, perhaps setting the stage for a vengeance-fueled finale and a showdown between the Front Man and his brother, police officer Jun-ho. 

‘Ironheart’ 

Starring: Dominique Thorne, Anthony Ramos, Lyric Ross 

Where: Disney+ 

When: June 25 

This Marvel miniseries is a spinoff from the “Black Panther” movie franchise and follows MIT student and genius inventor Riri Williams, aka Ironheart, who was responsible for creating the vibranium detector that sparked the events of 2022’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” in which she also invented an exoskeleton to rival that of Tony Stark/Ironman so that she could fight alongside the Wakandans. Now Williams has returned home to Chicago, where she meets Parker Robbins, aka The Hood, who is able to access dark magic, setting Williams on a “path of danger and adventure.”  

‘The Bear’ season 4 

Starring: Jeremy Allen White, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Ayo Edebiri 

Where: Disney+ 

When: June 26 

The first two seasons of the horribly tense kitchen-based drama “The Bear” were fantastic TV. The third? Not so much. (Although it should be said that even weak episodes of “The Bear” are still better than the vast majority of shows.) But hopefully season four finds super-talented chef Carmy Berzatto and his crew back on form as they try to make a success of the titular family restaurant which they’ve shifted from run-down sandwich shop to fine-dining venue. And after a wait of almost a year, we’ll finally get to find out what that all-important review said. 

‘Wednesday’ season 2  

Starring: Jenna Ortega, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Luis Guzman 

Where: Netflix  

When: August 6 

Wednesday Addams is back at Nevermore Academy for another year. And this time around, the rest of her spooky, kooky family will be spending a lot more time there, too — much to Wednesday’s chagrin — and not just because her brother Pugsley has enrolled. Co-showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar have promised a “darker, more complex” series. And at Netlix’s live Tudum event last month, it was announced that Lady Gaga will be guest starring as the “mysterious and enigmatic” Nevermore teacher Rosaline Rotwood. 

‘Slow Horses’ season 5 

Starring: Gary Oldman, Jack Lowden, Kristin Scott Thomas 

Where: Apple+ TV 

When: Sept. 24 

Former British super-spy Jackson Lamb and his unfortunate crew of misfit spooks return for another series of this excellent, darkly humorous espionage drama. This time around, the trouble starts when Slough House’s resident tech nerd Roddy gets a glamorous new girlfriend, who everyone — or, at least, everyone except for Roddy — can see is well out of his league. The show is an adaptation of Mick Herron’s “Slough House” novels, and this season is based on “London Rules.” “Ted Lasso” star Nick Mohammed is perhaps the biggest new name to join the cast; he'll be playing an ambitious London mayoral candidate. 

‘Stranger Things’ season 5 

Starring: Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Millie Bobby Brown 

Where: Netflix 

When: November 26 

The final (really?) season of the phenomenally successful Eighties-set sci-fi horror drama has a lot to live up to. Once again, psychokinetic Eleven and her pals in Hawkins, Indiana, must fight to save the Earth from the alternate dimension known as the Upside Down. Since its arrival on our screens in 2016, “Stranger Things” has been one of the world’s most talked-about and beloved series. Showrunners The Duffer Brothers have got pretty much everything right so far. Can they stick the landing? 


REVIEW: ‘Stick’ — Apple’s golf-based comedy unlikely to rival ‘Ted Lasso’ success

Updated 13 June 2025
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REVIEW: ‘Stick’ — Apple’s golf-based comedy unlikely to rival ‘Ted Lasso’ success

  • Owen Wilson’s charisma shines through, but ‘Stick’ is forgettable fluff

JEDDAH: You remember “Ted Lasso,” right? The Jason Sudeikis-fronted feelgood football-based sporting comedy that was a huge hit for Apple? Apple sure does. Hence “Stick.”

The Jason Sudeikis of “Stick” is Owen Wilson — a solid choice, possessed of a similar goofy charisma and real comedy pedigree. The football of “Stick” is golf. Which, while it’s easier to convincingly replicate to a high standard on screen (the supposedly elite football action in “Ted Lasso” was, unintentionally, just as hilarious as its best jokes) is also nowhere near as visually engaging as football. So “Stick” already has a lot of work to do.

The plot: Wilson is former pro golfer Pryce “Stick” Cahill, a serious talent who had a serious meltdown during a televised tournament, basically ruining his life. He now sells golf gear, gives lessons, and carries out side hustles with his former caddy Mitts (Marc Maron, doing what Marc Maron does — grumpy, cynical, with a glimpse of heart). And he’s going through a protracted divorce with a woman he still clearly loves but who has moved on.

One day, Pryce spots a young teen, Santi (Peter Dager), smashing balls further than most pros manage. Pryce quickly identifies that Santi is a prodigy and convinces his single mom Elena (Mariana Trevino) to let him coach/manage/try and qualify Santi for the US amateur championships. This involves a road trip in Mitts’ RV. It also involves Pryce handing over $100,000 that he really can’t afford to Elena to prove to her he’s serious. She knows Santi’s good, but since his dad — and former coach — left them, he hasn’t wanted to play golf at all. Santi is hugely talented, but prone to losing his head if things don’t go perfectly for him.

And that’s about it (in episodes up to the time of writing). We follow the mismatched crew on their road trip; Santi plays some golf and wows people; Pryce kind of becomes a substitute dad; Mitts and Elena bicker in a kind of flirty way. Nothing much happens, no huge laughs are had, Dager is a convincing mix of adolescent arrogance and angst, and Wilson is his usual quirky, charming self.

There’s nothing to hate about “Stick,” but there’s nothing really to love about it either. It’s nice. It’s vaguely entertaining. I’m already forgetting it.