The Syrian Bride

Starring Hiam Abbass and Clara Khoury. In Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, and French with English subtitles. Rating unavailable. For showtimes, please see page 89

Although tensions in The Syrian Bride aren't exactly on the thriller level, it bears more than a passing resemblance to Syriana. Where oil is the lifeblood in the George Clooney vehicle, though, love is the primary fuel driving this dark comedy from veteran Israeli director Eran Riklis (Zohar, Volcano Junction), who fashioned the film's refreshingly nondidactic script with Palestinian journalist Suha Arraf.

The tale takes place in the Golan Heights, a place where Druze Muslims practise their own brand of religion, most swearing allegiance to Syria despite having lived for decades under Israeli occupation. The exigencies are such in this no-person's land that when Mona (Clara Khoury) is joined in an arranged marriage to a Syrian TV star she has never met, she'll never be able to return to Israel, or wherever this is, exactly.

Making matters even more complicated, Mona's dad (Makram Khoury, the actor's real father) is a political activist fresh out of jail and harried by the local head cop (Uri Gabriel). And he's got additional problems, because one son (Ashraf Barhoum) is a gadabout hustler who seems to enjoy living in a borderless state, and the other (Eyad Sheety) has shamed the family by marrying a Russian (Evelyne Kaplun).

If the movie is an openhearted ensemble piece-with its orchestra always on the edge of disharmony-its moral centre is located in Mona's older sister, Amal, a woman approaching middle age with surplus dignity and too many dashed dreams. She's played by the wearily beautiful, France-based Hiam Abbass, the defiant belly dancer in 2002's Satin Rouge and the main character's mother in the recently released Paradise Now.

The tale, which strains a bit for farce toward the end, hands us many telling details about life in and near modern Israel-not the least of which is not to bother calling anyone official after 4 p.m. on a Thursday. (In the interest of equal representation, it makes the exact same point about the Syrians.) Some of the English-language passages, involving a feisty French UN worker (Julie-Ann Roth), feel awkward, and the movie doesn't always let the characters blossom organically. But The Syrian Bride is one movie in which even the messiest parts add up to a satisfyingly believable, and always entertaining, whole.

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