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Coming To Amreeka | Nisreen Faour plays a Palestinian mom carving out a new life in the American midwest in Cherien Dabis’ debut feature.

AMREEKA
Directed by Cherien Dabis. Starring Nisreen Faour, Melkar Muallem, Hiam Abbass, Alia Shawkat. Opens Fri, Nov 20.
***

When divorced single mom Muna Farah’s application to emigrate from Palestine to the United States is unexpectedly approved, she balks at leaving her familiar surroundings, even as she knows it’s an opportunity she can’t refuse — if only for the sake of her teenage son Fadi, a bright kid who deserves a shot at a professional future that simply won’t be available to him if they stay where they are.

But soon after their arrival in Illinois, it appears that Muna may have simply traded in one set of indignities for another. True, she no longer has to endure the daily humiliation of being stopped at checkpoints on her way to work, but now she must put up with having to flip burgers for minimum wage at a White Castle. (It’s the best job she can find, even though she worked for 10 years at a bank in Palestine.) Also, the days immediately following the invasion of Iraq weren’t the best time to be an Arab in America — Fadi’s classmates nickname him “Osama” and even Muna’s brother-in-law, a successful doctor, has begun losing patients.

Amreeka is the debut feature from Cherien Dabis, a Palestinian-American writer/director who, judging from the closing dedication to her family, was inspired by her own relatives’ experiences adjusting to life in the United States. Dabis is at her best in the film’s first half, efficiently sketching in the mundane oppressiveness of being a citizen of an occupied country, and capturing how disorienting something as simple as shopping for food can be when you’re new to American life, and the nearest Arab neighbourhood is a 90-minute drive away. Nisreen Faour, who plays Muna, is very good in these early scenes, especially when she talks to prospective employers, her eagerness for work and her nervousness about her imperfect English making her seem more overbearing and clumsy than
she really is.

It’s too bad Dabis doesn’t bring the same fresh eye to the second half of Amreeka, and settles instead into a predictable series of crises, arguments, and cross-cultural reconciliations, all leading up to a final scene in which Muna’s family (plus Fadi’s kindly Jewish principal, who’s taken a shine to Muna) gathers around the dinner table. Dabis certainly has her heart in the right place, but the image is a little too familiar, a little too ready-for-Sundance, to have much impact. I also could have done without the heavy-handed shots of the sign with the missing letters outside White Castle that reads “SUPPORT OUR OOPS.”

Still, Amreeka has a warmth and a fondness for its characters that’s easy to respond to, and it’s always a pleasure to see any film with Hiam Abbass (from The Visitor) or Alia Shawkat (from Arrested Development) in the cast. Dabis’ family can be proud.