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Sadly Over-hyped

Good concept, poorly executed.

A Masterpiece!

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This film takes place in a Bedouin Village in Israel. Suliman has just come home with his second wife. Jalila is not happy about this and is happy to inconvenience the two of them. This is all happening while Jalila's daughter, Layla, is off falling in love with Anuar. This secret love affair is forbidden as Anuar is from a different tribe. Suliman gets in a heated debate with Jalila when he tries to make Layla marry Munir. This leads to Jalila getting very upset and telling Suliman to "Be a man for once!" Suliman becomes very upset and banishes Jalila from their village. I really didn't like this film because it had such a slow pace that I had a very hard time focusing. This may just have been because of the much slower pace of life over in Israel compared to the U.S. One thing that I did like about this film was the message that it delivered about the importance of tradition in this culture. Even though I would've left that village in an instant, Layla stays because it is tradition and she still, even through all of this, does not want to shame her family. I find that very interesting because it is something that is not prevalent in the U.S.

This was an interesting movie, because things turned out differently than expected. Layla, one of the main characters in the film lives in a Bedouin community with her mother and siblings, and they start having a hard time coping to life, when their father introduces his new wife. Layla goes to college outside of the territory, and she starts falling in love with a student in the school. This becomes an issue, when he is introduced to her dad Suliman, because he is not part of the Bedouin community. Layla has to marry an old guy, whom her father has arranged for her, and at the end she ends up marrying him. Towards the end of the film, I was very surprised, because when Layla was in her car on her way to see Anwar, she turned off the engine of the car, and went back to her family. I did not expect this to happen, because Layla did not want to marry a random guy whom she was arranged to marry, and her mother started excepting her choice to leave, but she decided to act otherwise. I did not like Layla's dad in the film, because once his new wife came along, he abandoned his children, and left them in a rotten house, while he lived in a newly built one, he took away their electric power, and they were left with nothing. Layla's mother was upset when this happened to her and her children, that she decided to stay with her parents, Layla was taking care of herself and her siblings, but dropped them off to their mother, when she wanted to run off. Overall I would give this film a 4 out of 5.

Overall, I give this film a rating of 2.5 stars out of 5. I did not really enjoy it, but there were parts that I did enjoy. I thought that all of the actors were very talented and good at playing their roles. I liked the story line and how the film incorporated both traditional and modern elements. For example, the fact that Layla was in an arranged marriage is very traditional. However, the charters often had iPhones throughout the film, which was interesting for someone like me to see, as someone who lives in the US where technology is extremely important and a part of everyday life, but I would never even consider an arranged marriage as a part of life- because it is not, and is so rare for me to even see. So, for this film to have BOTH of these things as an important part of life was cool and definitely a new (global) perspective. Although, I did find the story line really confusing at times and what was going on. I think that it would've helped and been less confusing if the man that Layla was in love with and wanted to marry was a more prominent character. There was a lot of talk about him (good and bad) but once he finally showed up in the film towards the middle, he only popped in for a little and left (me) with the impression that he was going to make things better for him and Layla by convincing her parents to let him marry her (which didn't happen but I wish it did!) Speaking of the ending, I did not like it! I just wish there was a LITTLE more dialogue! I wish Layla would've looked at her sister who was peeking through at them, and reassured her that everything would be okay, because the three little sisters were really the real victims in this film, as well as Layla since they were all caught in the middle.

I was vising my family in Israel and took advantage of the opportunity to watch this movie with friends. I prepared myself for a hard political movie, as some of the media said it was but found myself watching a beautiful non-political universal movie. Sure it is still a hard movie with an educational and sad message but it is a must see movie. We were 4 people and all of us were speechless in the end. Maybe as an Israeli with previous knowledge I had more insights and could understand this movie in several other levels but that doesn't mean that this is a great movie. Great job to all the cast and I hope it will succeed not only in the theaters across the world but may also be nominated for the Oscar this year. The cast and the story deserves it.