Hideous Kinky (1998) review

Finding London "sad and cold," Julia (Kate Winslet) lives with her two children Bea (Bella Riza) and Lucy (Carrie Mullan) in Marrakesh where she tries to make money selling dolls (and sometimes doing translation work), has a sexual relationship with shady street performer Bilal (Saïd Taghmaoui) and is interested in studying Sufism ... but funds run out.  It's based on the autobiographical novel by Esther Freud (daughter of painter Lucian) and it makes Morocco seem both enticing and a little menacing, but the movie itself is meandering and vague, failing to provide much backstory for Julia as to why she would take this journey in the first place (except that her ex-partner, a poet, is with another woman).  The longer it goes on, the more apparent it becomes that Julia is significantly less mature than her oldest child, who realizes she needs an actual education and wants to socialize with her peers ... and that it's Bilal who is the capable "adult."