Not a subtle film, but an attractive, affecting one.

| May 15, 2011

In attempt to sustain momentum, the film begins to lurch from comic-book realism to join-the-dots melodrama.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 13, 2011

The film is more gentle than harsh, relying on a very fine performance from the charming Faour and settings in Palestine and Illinois that seem very real.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 13, 2011

The political issues are a little heavy handed but the story - partly drawn from the director's own experience - works best when it focuses on the personal.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 12, 2011

You'll end up baffled that a film built on such shaky foundations can end up being so impossibly sweet.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 10, 2011

Likeable but lightweight, Dabis' emigration tale plays largely for laughs, sapping some of the drama from the storyline.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 9, 2011

Writer-director Cherien Dabis too easily resolves or dismisses the characters' problems, making way for an upbeat ending.

| Dec 18, 2009

A feel-good comedy about a Palestinian mother who moves to rural Illinois with her teenaged son, Amreeka is a kind of stealth political film that confronts issues of ethnic tension and American xenophobia.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 30, 2009

Amreeka makes its points with gentle humour and engaging performances -- especially Faour, who makes Muna so likeable it's impossible not to cross your fingers and hope her luck is about to change.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 30, 2009

A good-hearted film about the resilience of the human spirit.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 14, 2009

You keep rooting for these characters, even as the plot takes a series of broad and overly familiar turns.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 25, 2009

Faour, in an Oscar-worthy performance, renders Muna in shades of love and hope.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 25, 2009

For the most part, Dabis and her actors charm their way through this material, finding absurdist humor even in the darkest moments.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 24, 2009

Although the drama heads on a predictable course, Faour brings intelligence and humor to her performance and Muallem, as the smart adolescent turned surly and scared, is likewise sharp.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 24, 2009

This sensitively made movie is more than dim Americans making terrorist jokes. It's one of the richer movies you're likely to see about average Arabs in America.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 24, 2009

This could be rough going, but Cherien Dabis' Amreeka tells this immigrants' tale with some humor and only a dash of political correctness.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 18, 2009

Does it occur to xenophobic Americans that almost all immigrants, like their own ancestors, came here because they admire the United States? Someone please explain that to Lou Dobbs.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 17, 2009

Writer-director Cherien Dabis paints a gentle, often wry picture of human resilience, and Faour and Muallen give solid performances, but there are a few too many by-the-numbers moments.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 4, 2009

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 4, 2009

Most important, Mr. Dabis knows that home -- what a fraught place! -- is, in equal measures, where the hurt is and where the heart is.

Full Review | Sep 3, 2009