Amreeka
Cherien Dabis | U.S.A./Canada/Kuwait | 2009
97 mins
Cherien Dabis’ makes a fabulous debut feature film in
Amreeka. It tells the story of Muna, a single-mother, and her teenage son who migrate to U.S.A. in 2003. From Palestine. The movie explores what they go through in trying to settle-in and the prejudice they face. A simply enough premise, but what makes the movie the best of the festival so far (yes, you read that right!), is a water-tight script by the director herself and an astonishingly good yet poetically simple performance by Nisreen Faour as Muna. Nisreen embodies her character as a simple and nice person (akin to Amy Adams’ Ashley from
Junebug). She portrays the character with such fierce honesty, that Muna becomes an amiable person, like everyone’s favourite cousin. With her son, she lives through experiences that resonate with authenticity, reacting as we expect living breathing people to. This depth of character, the familiarity it brings, makes her easy to identify with and becomes the director’s master-stroke in this winning script. Competently surrounded by a host of wonderful performances, especially Hiam Abbass as Muna’s assertive sister Raghda,
Amreeka grows to become one of the most personal and warm-hearted movies of not just this festival, but the entire year.
My rating --> 4 of 5
