I saw the movie twice, in Arabic although being french, born in Egypt I do not speak the language. But the movie so perfectly done, so well played that I had the feeling I could understand all that was said. There is charm, humor, a kind of romantic atmosphere all along the movie. This is a movie in the line of The band's visit,The Yacoubian Building, Caramel, all of them realized between 2006 and 2007 and a must see for any open minded viewer who wishes to understand the middle east culture. And of course from my personal view point I could recognize some of the places I went through as a child. A great movie, a must to see.

Watched this on DVD recently and found a delightful and lovely story. An impulsive struggling dancer from NYC goes to Cairo to chase after a boyfriend and ends up learning belly dancing.Laura Ramsey is pretty and winning. It's a feel good story and provides subtle insights into the cultural and moral differences found in Egyptian society. It's not preachy but quite touching in the way it shows the attitudes of men towards women, divorce etc. It's not a tourist view of Egypt but an insightful looks into the society there. The human relationships are in the forefront in the movie.The actress who plays the former belly dancer star Ismahan is quite lovely.Definitely worth a watch.

I first watched this movie when it came out in Morocco, and I just loved it ! I've watched it a couple of times since, in English, and each time it just gets better. Nabil really managed to wrap up a great quality movie that goes beyond its center topic : Belly Dance, he pictured the shock between occidental and oriental cultures in a soft implicit way. Not to mention that he made a belly dancing movie for a general public in a way that the audience gets to know all this fabulous world through Lola, who's American and obviously an outsider like the target audience of the movie. I also loved it because It's just bold, I mean it's basically one of the first Arabic films ever made about belly dancing, giving the fact that it's a pretty controversial matter in oriental/Muslim countries, not to mention Youssef, who's probably the first openly gay character ever portrayed in an Arabic made movie. I couldn't help but notice a lot of similarities between Egypt and Morocco in the movie, some of them were pretty obvious (especially the clothing) so I guess a lot of scenes were shot down here. Anyways, to sum things up, this definitely is a must-watch movie, it's fun, entertaining and well made, but I fell like it has been really underrated for what it really is, I'm afraid not enough people have seen it, and that is truly a shame, so please, go watch it, you will not be disappointed, I promise !

Whatever Lola wants is one of those happily ever after movies that you can find every now and then but what will make you follow the story is the beautiful Egyptian dance and music.I'm not going to take this movie very seriously since it was just very fun , casual and easy going Cinderella story and you surely will love if you are in your sweet sixteen , or even teenage years ,specially if you are a girl but older than that you may only enjoy the music more than the corny story which by the way was not even close to reality ! How on earth ONLY the talent can be enough for a blond girl to become a star in the world of SHOWBIZ in a country like Egypt where all the producers are men and crave for white blonds??? I rest my case !