In Between Movie Review

In Between Movie Review

Watching “In Between,” about a trio of young Palestinian women!

Watching “In Between,” about a trio of young Palestinian women in Tel Aviv trying to shape their own destinies despite being part of a conservative society entrenched in patriarchy, I realized the sisterhood created by Arab-Israeli filmmaker Maysaloun Hamoud, making her feature debut, was partly indebted to Hollywood’s gaggle-of-girls genre. Think “Three Coins in the Fountain,” “Where the Boys Are,“ “Sex and the City” and even hints of “9 to 5” and “Thelma and Louise.”


Yes, there are English subtitles onscreen, but the actions of these roommates easily translate into a familiar pattern, one that I have always found to be irresistible: Three or four single women with distinctive personalities—an extrovert, a goody-goody, an arty type, etc.—share their intertwined lives. Usually, one suffers a tragic incident of sorts that causes their bond to grow stronger.

"In Between Movie Image"

Laila (Mouna Hawa), a lawyer, and Salma (Sana Jammelieh), a D.J. who supports herself with restaurant work, spend their free time doing what their counterparts in Berlin, New York and other big cosmopolitan cities do — going to clubs, getting high, drinking and canoodling in a large and shifting crowd of friends. When their roommate leaves the nest to marry, she arranges for her cousin Nur (Shaden Kanboura) to take her place. Nur, who is studying computer science, is an observant Muslim who tries, as politely as she can, to disguise her disapproval of Laila and Salma’s hedonistic lifestyle. Nur’s fiancé, Wissam (Henry Andrawes), is more blunt, worrying about the state of her soul and trying to arrange for her to move somewhere else.

The plots and subplots of this busy film coalesce around the single, multifarious problem of patriarchal authority, which each of the three main characters confronts in a different guise. Wissam, who at first seems like a humorless but basically well-meaning guy, turns out to be something much worse. But “In Between” doesn’t suppose that only pious, Muslim men mistreat the women in their lives. Salma, who is gay, faces the brutal intolerance of her Christian family, while Laila finds that her dreamy, artistic, well-traveled boyfriend, Ziad (Mahmoud Shalaby), is not as open-minded as he seemed.

In retrospect, the three-stranded story “In Between” braids together might look a bit tidy and schematic, but it makes its points with an impressive mixture of clarity and nuance. The central performances are all terrific. Ms. Hawa, tall and glamorous, with regal bearing and a cloud of curls, has an effortlessly commanding presence, and for a while Ms. Jammelieh and Ms. Kanboura dwell in the shadow of her charisma. But each asserts herself in a different way: Ms. Jammelieh by finding the well of emotion behind Salma’s cool, cynical facade and Ms. Kanboura by locating both Nur’s toughness and her half-hidden sense of fun.

"Scene from In Between Movie"

Then there is tattooed, nose-ring-sporting DJ Salma (Sana Jammelieh), a laid-back bohemian and closeted lesbian who plays along with her Christian family’s attempt to set her up with a male mate.  When her boss at her day job in a restaurant kitchen objects to workers speaking Arabic because “it makes the customers uncomfortable,” Salma quits and ends up bartending. That leads to a romantic connection with a patron who’s a medical intern and much verbal rebuke by her disapproving parents when they finally catch on.

In Between Movie Trailer:

The film, then, can’t bridge the distance between the tragic circumstances its characters face and the rigid, somewhat didactic ways they’re depicted. While politics and certain kinds of media try to simplify human conflict, art can work against that impulse, making one aware of the specificities of people’s experiences. In Between does a little bit of both but ultimately chooses order and clarity over ambiguity and implication. During its final moments, Salma, Laila, and Nour sit together silently. Each finds herself at a crossroads, a chance for the film to explore the thrill and terror of their uncertain futures. Instead, it ends abruptly, unsure of what to do without a conflict to explain.