Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

nsharky-732-789549 My wife loves this movie and she would not hesitate to give it a rating of 10. However, since I am the one writing this review, I am entering a rating of 7. Overall, I recommend this movie because it tackles an interesting and original topic, it is pleasant to watch, and the acting is quite good. Having said that, I should also add that the movie would have been much better if the writer/director depicted the two sides in a more even-handed manner. Firstly, it is difficult to miss the attempt of portraying Rachel's family as extremely intolerant while Nazira's family appears to be much more open-minded. Secondly, I agree with the fact (advanced by Nazira) that the vast majority of the 1.5 billion Muslims are peaceful and they do not harbor any ill will toward Jews. However, in the language of statistics, one should not confuse the following two conditional probabilities: Probability of being hostile to Jews given that the person is Muslim, and Probability of being Muslim given that the person is hostile to Jews. Anyway, I am not suggesting that the movie should have addressed this complicated issue. But since the writer decided to mention this topic, it would have been nice if he let Nazira state something along the line of "Our leaders do not tolerate the violent actions of the very few individuals among us".As a final comment, it is interesting to note that each reviewer has his or her antenna tuned to a particular frequency, so to speak. For instance, Paul stated in December 2010 "What bothered me about the movie is the political correctness evident throughout". On the other hand, Mike stated in April 2010 "This film has a distinctly anti-liberal point of view". Obviously, I agree with Paul. A quick check of Schaefer's views on various issues (such as the environment) shows that he is indeed a liberal.

pc95 The writing for "Arranged" is terribly leading and belittling. Directed and written by Stefan Schaefer, the narrative goes through fabricated and forced discussions wiht caricaturish type relationships of Muslim and Jewish female characters. The acting ranges from decent to poor - especially the phony accents. Traditional stereotypical ideas are blasted in excess. In one preposterous scene, you have the lead Jewish character's mother chastising her daughter in front of her Muslim friend for bringing her over. While this might be possible it is fairly implausible. There are plenty of similar scenes where characters are puppets of the writers devoid of realism. The main characters are old enough to not be so dependent emotionally on their respective parents, so it didn't make sense. Not recommended but you could do worse. 5/10

deschreiber This is really a nice movie, with highly sympathetic characters and a bit of tension between the Jewish and Muslim cultures (not too much, mind you), and a pleasant, happy, all's-well-with-the-world ending (apart from the prominent anti-male comment). But it leaves you wondering whether it isn't mostly a fantasy. Did family and neighbours really do no more than tsk-tsk at their friendship? No insults? No warnings? No threats? The young women were very family-bound and would have found it very difficult to choose friendship over family loyalty. But most of all did the two friends never talk about Israel and Palestine? How could they avoid a rift when that topic came up? Still, I suppose not every movie has to fit perfectly into reality. Arranged is a very nice feel-good movie that should have been seen more widely.

Chad Shiira The blind dates aren't going well for Rochel(Zoe Lister Jones). She considers losing her religion, which means, losing her family. But first, a trial run, one night without the trappings of being Orthodox Jewish, before she makes up her mind. Rochel goes to a house party with her cousin. There's drinking and smoking and gentile boys, but Rochel doesn't drink, or smoke, or seem interested in the boy who insists that she dance with him. The night is a bust. At this point, "Arranged", unintended or not, makes us wonder if Rochel likes boys at all. Maybe the Orthodox Jewish girl is in love with the Orthodox Muslim girl. Nasira(Francis Benhamou) hasn't found the right man either. Neither girl makes a move. Straight and picky, both Rochel and Nasira are unlike the women depicted in past films who did their growing up within a patriarchal(arguably, archaic) construct, by which the girls walk into arranged marriages like lambs to the slaughter. In "Arranged", the two orthodox girls, straight and picky, have some flexibility during husband season, so they exercise it. Although there's never the slightest inclination towards romantic love, it makes you wonder, if each girl's respective religion would prevent a declaration of attraction, had there been one from either heart. When the Muslim girl invites the Jewish girl to her home, and she tattoos the Jewish girl's hand in her room, "Arranged" could have really challenged the orthodoxy shared by both religions that a woman needs a good man. But this square film, is square just like its two female leads who befriend each other, and that's okay, that's more than enough, because "Arranged" has a low-key charm that builds bridges across the religious divide without being cloying about it. But, oooh. It would've been awesome if they kissed.