Review of Arranged (2007) by Martijn W — 21 Jun 2008

It's a nice movie. I started enjoying it -as a story- after the 30th minute of it, which is bad. It was slow in general, and many scenes could be much shorter because they don't do that much for the story and the film. On the other hand, the problem with this kind of subject matters are sensetive and should be treated very delicately. I mean when someone wants to make a film about such a subject, he/she should know deeply the differences between the two and express them in a dramatic way. In this film, the makers either didn't know enough or were too afraid to express what they know which made the film a little naive when dealing with the religious part.

I resent two things in the film: that the arranged marriage did work, which happens but RARELY. The film actually supports arranged marriage! The other thing is the scene where the small kid asks if Muslims wanna throw Israel into the ocean. The answer that the Muslim teacher gives was very irrelevant and very coward! It is obvious, some Muslims want to throw Israel into the ocean because Israelis are already killing Muslims.

Let's face it, the Torah and Quran contradict on the matter of the existence of a Jewish state in the Arab World, and if you wanna make a film about that you should have something to say about it instead of running away from it.

But, I must say that the film is a nice try.