Sometimes the most important stories are the hardest to tell, the secrets one most wants to share too painful to speak. Olfa had four daughters. This much we know from the title, but only two are with her now. What happened to the others? As the film opens, director Kaouther Ben Hania introduces actors who will help her to explain. Actors to play the two missing daughters, an actor to play the various men who have connected with the family, and an actor to play Olfa herself at times when it all becomes too much.

Working with these actors, with Olfa and with daughters Eya and Tayssir, Ben Hania unravels the complex story through a mixture of interviews and reenactments, some of which are discussed in front of the camera before they are performed. The exposure of the film’s underlying structures...