Inclubabu Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Celia A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

aFrenchparadox It's so rich thematic wise that I don't know what to start with. It's about the hell of the Middle-East situation. It's about the absurdity this situation can lead to. So absurd sometimes that it sounds like this of 'Asterix's twelve tasks' where he has to find his way in a seemingly French (but Roman) bureaucratic public administration. Yes, so absurd it turns to grotesque and becomes funny. Despite the hell it is actually. It's about the weight of the community on your life. About the weight politics have on your life, want it or not. It's also about sisterhood and brotherhood. It's hence 'Waltz with Bachir', 'Ve'lakhta lehe isha', 'L'esquive', 'Little Jerusalem' and 'The bubble' themes in 92 minutes of subtleness. With some magnificent actresses moreover. The bride, Clara Khoury, and above all the bride's sister, Hiam Abbass (also in 'Lemon tree'), the dignity embodied. It's 'just' another gem by Eran Riklis.

Eyal Allweil I'm a big fan of Israeli cinema, and I'm often proud of my country's efforts. But The Syrian Bride didn't work for me. I wanted to like it, but it was too predictable, too superficial, and by the end I was both bored and unmoved. Hiam Abbass is excellent, though.I'd say the script was mediocre, but it could be that for an international audience the film will prove more appealing, since it does shed light in a clear and well-intentioned manner on the intricacies of the dilemmas of the Druze in the Golan Heights.To give a frame of reference, I thought that both Year Zero and Paradise Now were far better movies than the Syrian Bride.

noralee "The Syrian Bride" uses the familiar comic genre of the colliding tensions in an extended family wedding to humanistically illuminate Middle East political, gender, generational, religious, modernization and economic tensions coming down to human relationships vs. bureaucracies.Co-writers Suha Arraf (a Palestinian journalist) and Israeli director Eran Riklis pile almost too much on to this one Druze (Israeli Arab) family living in the occupied Golan Heights in order to make the personal political. The tensions, poignancy and symbolism of a wedding are heightened because when this bride leaves her home for her arranged marriage with a Syrian celebrity, she will not be able to return home.Every complicated character has a complicated background, whether theirs or their parents' politics or their religiosity or their dress or their educational or romantic aspirations-- and is in a complicated relation to every other character and the authorities.In addition to the return of prodigal sons from overseas, the larger community intrudes on the intra-family tensions, from robed tribal elders and the police who each bring warnings of proper behavior to a comical videographer. My dependency on English subtitles lessened some of the impact of hearing characters switch from Arabic to Hebrew to French to Russian to English to communicate, as part of the interactions are based on who can understand different languages and who can't. This complex in-gathering all symbolically happens the same day as a demonstration in support of the change over of power in Syria from the father the dictator to the son, while a flat tire leads to a crucial delay. The ubiquitous television, and government attention, however, is focused on the West Bank, making this border a forgotten zone as well as a no (wo)man's land. What makes it all hang together amidst this human comedy is the central focus from the start to the finish on the almost silent bride, dressed in Western white, and her more verbal older sister, rebelliously in slacks, and both played by powerful actresses. Each has made choices in the past they regret and each chooses their future now, despite the efforts of all their male relatives, let alone global politics, to thwart them and make them helpless. Even with the heavy-handed baggage of all the "Crash"-like coincidences, the film beautifully makes the point that politics isn't just ideology but affects how people get on with the basics of their lives.

morphy_os This movie offers a glimpse into the lives of a forgotten people struggling with issues of identity and belonging. I sympathized with the sense of isolation and never ending uncertainty.I think this movie's greatest success, however, is its ability to present the very differing main characters as victims of circumstances.Being disowned for departing from the acceptable rules carries repercussions that are deep and long-lasting. However, maintaining acceptance within a community that regards change as the dissemination tool of its oppressor, can carry an ever higher price.The ultimate lesson is that, whether good or bad, change can not be stopped, and alienation ultimately weakens the very system it was evoked to protect.