Amreeka 2009

      Muna is a divorced single mother living in Ramallah in the West Bank.  She has applied for a visa to the US.  When the visa arrives, her son Fadi, an excellent student, convinces her they should both go to the US.  There is an incident at customs but they join Muna's sister and family in Illinois.  Muna needs a job, although she has two degrees and 15 years of experience in banking, she settles for work at White Castle.  She is telling the family that her job is at a nearby bank.  It's spring 2003 and the US invades Iraq.  While friends come from unlikely places, Fadi encounters prejudice at school.  How Muna sorts things out with her family is the rest of the story.  Will the result be tragic or hopefull?

     Muna and Fadi are now living with Muna’s sister, her GP husband and two daughters.  Predictable problems occur as life in Amreeka (Arabic for America) seems as difficult as in Ramallah.  Her brother-in-law's patients are deserting him because of the invasion of Iraq.  Fadi is tormented by racist bullies and he fights back with violence at school. Their issues are confronted eventually but as director Dabis recognises, only time, patience and resilience can provide the solution.  Not a subtle film but an interesting and affecting one. The American sequences were shot in Winnipeg, Manitoba.  3* (This movie is OK)

96 min, Drama directed and written by Cherien Dabis with Nisreen Faour, Melkar Muallem, Hiam Abbass, Alia Shawkat, Yussuf Abut-Warda, Joseph Ziegler, Amer Heikel, Selena Haddad, Jenna Kawar, Sheila Maullem, Brodie Sanderson, Andrew Sannie, Daniel Boiteau.

Note:  Imdb 7* out of 10* with 3432 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes 87% with 71 critic reviews 76% with 25000+ audience scores, Metacritic 73 out of 100 with 24 critic reviews 8 out of 10 with 14 user scores, Roger Ebert 3 1/2*.

Special Note:  There were no White Castles in Winnepeg where this was filmed.  The White Castle company had supplies trucked in but it never sold food.  People still kept trying to order from the supposed White Castle?  Amreeka is not a story of American prejudice but of American reality, showing both the good and the bad.  Film debut of Melkar Muallem in the role of Fadi Farah.  She received "an introducing" credit for portraying Fadi.  Feature film directing debut of Cherien Dabis. 

Mistakes:  Interviews and luggage searches are performed by people with "Airport Security" patches on their uniforms.  These jobs would have been conducted by Customs officers and Immigration officers.