Never mind the fact that she isn’t supposed to show her face in her campaign videos, or directly address the male voters at a rally in a tent, the doc is made of stern stuff and will not be dissuaded. “Like gardens, for instance. You can’t even drive your sick child to the clinic.

No one in this film actually calls her the “perfect” candidate; an alternative title would have been just “The Candidate”, like Robert Redford in Michael Ritchie’s 1972 film, who is allowed to take a shot at political power because the powers-that-be are confident he hasn’t got a hope.Mila al-Zahrani plays Maryam, a young doctor in a Saudi Arabian hospital who is routinely patronised by her male supervisors: when a grumpy old man with an arm injury refuses to be examined by her, rebuffing her polite insistence and demanding a male doctor, Maryam’s colleague simply sides with the patient. Her dad is deflated, her little sister scandalised, but Maryam goes viral.

The formula works wonders on the second time of asking.Mila Al Zahrani plays Dr Maryam, an overworked medic at an under-resourced clinic, who decides to run for a seat on the municipal council. What she really wants is to pave the dirt road that leads to her clinic. The Perfect Candidate suggests that all it might take is for one bright, bold individual to put their shoulder to the wheel for the direction of travel to be altered, if only by a degree. For Haifaa al-Mansour, it’s an opportunity to reflect on the progress made by courageous women like her. But her father has forgotten to sign off on her travel permit; the official who could rectify this happens to be her cousin, but his implacable secretary tells Maryam she can only get an appointment to see him on short notice if she wishes to stand for office as a local councillor – the authorities having decided to pay solemn lip service to female eligibility. Mansour’s achievement was noteworthy in itself, but Wadjda turned out to be more than some dry historical milestone.

In a mood of pure exasperation, Maryam signs up. And so al-Mansour gives her audience a fine lesson in some key ingredients of political life in Saudi or anywhere else: nepotism, cynicism, sexism and chaos.That scene at the airport when Maryam is turned back (with no guarantee of any ticket refund) is a crystallising moment of patriarchal arrogance: there was a similar moment in Al-Mansour cleverly shows that Maryam’s family connections in the world of being a wedding singer have given her some crucial experience in public performance and addressing large assemblies of people, including men, in that rare context that permits the public acceptability of women. On the local TV news, the presenter kindly suggests she must be campaigning on issues that expressly interest women. In the movies, that has given us the work of The Perfect Candidate review: Saudi feminist drama is forthright and free from poeticism. There is a colossal gender divide, whose purpose is always to make women inaudible and invisible.As for Maryam herself, she shows a natural political shrewdness in making her stump speech all about fixing the damaged road outside her hospital – nothing to do with women’s rights. She is seen as a novelty act. Haifaa al-Mansour, the first Saudi woman to direct a feature, goes back to basics with an effective story of a doctor trying to enter politicsNow, after a brace of English-language misadventures, Mansour is back on home soil, and decidedly back to core principles in that her new film delivers another salute to the indomitable female spirit, to the point where it might just as easily have been called Wadjda 2: This Time She’s a Doctor. The Perfect Candidate is fiery and headstrong, and instantly gets you on its side. But it’s socked through with great power, conviction and an underlying hope for a better world. The Saudi Arabia it shows us is a place where modernity rubs up against entrenched conservatism, and where even the most decadent Barbie Princess-inspired wedding still features a singer who croons, “There is no God but Allah.” The Kingdom’s a mess, it doesn’t make sense.