Hany Abu-Assad has proved himself with this film, 'Ford Transit', and 'Paradise Now', to be one of the most interesting and astute chroniclers of the Palestinian experience in Jerusalem.The plot is simple: A young Palestinian woman must decide whether to defy tradition and marry her boyfriend that day, or leave forever with her father, and enter an arranged marriage in another land.The film sometimes meanders, but has some very powerful sequences, giving a strong sense of the realities of life under occupation, and some sweetly human comic moments showing the universality of humanity in all cultures. Very good lead performances all around.

The only thing about this movie that is worthy of a recommendation are the nice location shots. I've never been to Israel or the Palestinian territories, so it was nice to see a modern view of this always-in-the-news region. But, story-wise, this film is a mediocre effort. The pace is agonizingly slow and anti-climactic as the heroine that we're supposed to care about locates her true love halfway through the movie and then we're forced to follow this uninteresting couple as they try to round up the family and have a quick wedding ceremony. There is a movie here. It's a young girl's journey to check out each and every one of the potential (and father-approved) suitors on the list. One charming moment in the film was when the girl and her boyfriend peek into the offices of a young lawyer who's on the list. She's never seen him before so she's naturally curious to check him out as she tells her boyfriend. How much more interesting it would have been to have the girl meet all her potential suitors, compare them to her rather mundane actor-boyfriend, and make a grown-up decision. That would have been a real journey worth filming.

This movie starts out a bit artsy, which I found off-putting, but it improved quickly. I found the pace of the movie slightly tedious, but this is necessary to show what Palestinian life is like (waiting hours at check-points to go anywhere is not unusual). Some parts of the movie were slightly confusing for a non-Palestinian audience to follow what was going on. The lead actress who plays Rana was very good. It is not a story about the Israeli occupation, it is a story about Rana, but it does show a lot of what it is like in Israeli occupied Palestine. If you don't mind that it isn't Hollywood, I would recommend this movie purely for the interesting setting.

A fair depiction of the hardships under occupation, and the customs of the middle class Muslim Palestinians in Jerusalem. Perhaps because it was filmed in Jerusalem streets under such adversity, this film is a bit amateurish with mismatched music substituting for compelling acting.