Muna Farah lives with her teenage son, Fadi, in Bethlehem on the West Bank. Muna is still sad about being dumped by her husband who left her for a younger, more attractive woman but has managed to stay afloat working at a local bank for the past ten years. When Muna receives notification that her green card application has been approved, she and Fadi pack their bags and move to a suburban town in Illinois where her sister Raghda and her physician husband Nabeel, live.
Before moving in with her sister and brother-in-law (along with their two children), there's a contrived scene where Muna loses all the family savings ($2500) at the airport after customs agents confiscate a tin box of cookies. It seems that Muna had placed the money in the box and wasn't paying attention when the cookies were confiscated (you would think that of all the items they were asked to take out of their bags, the box that contained the money would have been subject to the greatest scrutiny on Muna's part). We learn later that Fadi "tried" to tell his mother that the custom agents had taken the cookies, but for some reason, she "wasn't listening".
Amreeka takes place just at the time the United States has invaded Iraq and anti-Arabic sentiment is high throughout the country. Raghda and Nabeel are directly affected after receiving a threatening letter in their mailbox. Meanwhile, Muna is bent on earning her keep so she tries to find a job. Despite her work experience back home, she can't find a job with a decent salary so she ends up working at White Castle. Whenever her sister drops her off for work, she enters an office building next to the White Castle, in an effort to hide the fact that the best job she was able to get was at a fast food restaurant.
Muna makes sure Fadi is enrolled in the local high school and is in the same class as his cousin, Raghda's daughter, who is an outspoken critic of the Israeli occupation. Eventually, some bullies at the school begin taunting Fadi, calling him "Osama" and telling him that he should go back home.
Muna tries to earn extra money by becoming an MLM distributor of herbal products. Eventually, she qualifies for a credit card and uses it to help her brother-in-law, who's behind on his mortgage payments since he's lost numerous patients due to anti-Arab prejudice.
The second act climax occurs when some of the bullies who had been harassing Fadi, run into Muna while she's working at the White Castle. After exchanging words, one of the bullies spills a drink on the floor and when Muna chases them out, she slips on the wet floor and hurts her back. Nabeel finds her laid out on the floor of the restaurant but determines that she only has a muscle spasm and needs an anti-inflammatory. Fadi decides to take things into his own hands that night and goes to the house of the bully who taunted his mother and gets into a fight with him. Fadi is arrested and Muna sneaks out of the house to go down to the police station to try and win her son's release. She ends up calling the school principal, a Jewish man who she befriended earlier. While the charges have been dropped, the police say that they still have to hold Fadi with the implication that he's being investigated for being a possible terrorist. The police seem extremely insistent but in an implausible scene, the principal manages to convince the police (on the strength of his reputation in the community) to release the boy.
Amreeka ends on a positive note as the family has a nice meal (joined by Muna's friend, the helpful principal) at a Middle Eastern restaurant.
Amreeka is a mildly entertaining, lightweight view of new immigrants coming to America. Writer/Director Cherien Dabis populates the supporting cast with one-dimensional caricatures. The bad guys are the bigoted high school students (who we never get to know as real people). As a counterbalance, there are three characters with 'hearts of gold' who support Muna in her struggle to get ahead in the new country: the aforementioned school principal of Jewish background, the woman who works in the office next door to the White Castle who covers for Muna as she attempts to hide the true nature of her job from her family and the young purple-haired White Castle worker who befriends Muna and sticks up for her when the bullies harass her at work.
Amreeka is full of political pronouncements favoring the Palestinian cause. Nabeel correctly predicts that the Iraqi invasion by the Americans will destabilize the country but is disturbingly silent concerning the thousands murdered by Sadaam during his reign of terror. Muna indicates that she's not Muslim but is she a Palestinian Christian or simply a secular Arab? There is a passing remark that the family was subject to prejudice in the West Bank too, but that issue is never developed.
In a simplistic way, Amreeka suggests that there's both good and bad in America but the characters that are served up to illustrate that point, lack depth. While some of the interactions between Muna and the various people she befriends are interesting, the central plot device, which involves bigoted school bullies, is one big cliché.
It is refreshing to have a picture detailing one aspect of the Palestinian immigrant experience—there haven't been that many films that come to the United States which focus on the ordinary lives of Palestinian people. And the positive message embodied by Muna's talk with her son at the end of the film where she urges him to push forward in life despite obstacles is to be commended. Amreeka does hold your interest throughout but too many of its characters are rooted in caricature, failing to provide enough fully drawn portraits of real people.
Before moving in with her sister and brother-in-law (along with their two children), there's a contrived scene where Muna loses all the family savings ($2500) at the airport after customs agents confiscate a tin box of cookies. It seems that Muna had placed the money in the box and wasn't paying attention when the cookies were confiscated (you would think that of all the items they were asked to take out of their bags, the box that contained the money would have been subject to the greatest scrutiny on Muna's part). We learn later that Fadi "tried" to tell his mother that the custom agents had taken the cookies, but for some reason, she "wasn't listening".
Amreeka takes place just at the time the United States has invaded Iraq and anti-Arabic sentiment is high throughout the country. Raghda and Nabeel are directly affected after receiving a threatening letter in their mailbox. Meanwhile, Muna is bent on earning her keep so she tries to find a job. Despite her work experience back home, she can't find a job with a decent salary so she ends up working at White Castle. Whenever her sister drops her off for work, she enters an office building next to the White Castle, in an effort to hide the fact that the best job she was able to get was at a fast food restaurant.
Muna makes sure Fadi is enrolled in the local high school and is in the same class as his cousin, Raghda's daughter, who is an outspoken critic of the Israeli occupation. Eventually, some bullies at the school begin taunting Fadi, calling him "Osama" and telling him that he should go back home.
Muna tries to earn extra money by becoming an MLM distributor of herbal products. Eventually, she qualifies for a credit card and uses it to help her brother-in-law, who's behind on his mortgage payments since he's lost numerous patients due to anti-Arab prejudice.
The second act climax occurs when some of the bullies who had been harassing Fadi, run into Muna while she's working at the White Castle. After exchanging words, one of the bullies spills a drink on the floor and when Muna chases them out, she slips on the wet floor and hurts her back. Nabeel finds her laid out on the floor of the restaurant but determines that she only has a muscle spasm and needs an anti-inflammatory. Fadi decides to take things into his own hands that night and goes to the house of the bully who taunted his mother and gets into a fight with him. Fadi is arrested and Muna sneaks out of the house to go down to the police station to try and win her son's release. She ends up calling the school principal, a Jewish man who she befriended earlier. While the charges have been dropped, the police say that they still have to hold Fadi with the implication that he's being investigated for being a possible terrorist. The police seem extremely insistent but in an implausible scene, the principal manages to convince the police (on the strength of his reputation in the community) to release the boy.
Amreeka ends on a positive note as the family has a nice meal (joined by Muna's friend, the helpful principal) at a Middle Eastern restaurant.
Amreeka is a mildly entertaining, lightweight view of new immigrants coming to America. Writer/Director Cherien Dabis populates the supporting cast with one-dimensional caricatures. The bad guys are the bigoted high school students (who we never get to know as real people). As a counterbalance, there are three characters with 'hearts of gold' who support Muna in her struggle to get ahead in the new country: the aforementioned school principal of Jewish background, the woman who works in the office next door to the White Castle who covers for Muna as she attempts to hide the true nature of her job from her family and the young purple-haired White Castle worker who befriends Muna and sticks up for her when the bullies harass her at work.
Amreeka is full of political pronouncements favoring the Palestinian cause. Nabeel correctly predicts that the Iraqi invasion by the Americans will destabilize the country but is disturbingly silent concerning the thousands murdered by Sadaam during his reign of terror. Muna indicates that she's not Muslim but is she a Palestinian Christian or simply a secular Arab? There is a passing remark that the family was subject to prejudice in the West Bank too, but that issue is never developed.
In a simplistic way, Amreeka suggests that there's both good and bad in America but the characters that are served up to illustrate that point, lack depth. While some of the interactions between Muna and the various people she befriends are interesting, the central plot device, which involves bigoted school bullies, is one big cliché.
It is refreshing to have a picture detailing one aspect of the Palestinian immigrant experience—there haven't been that many films that come to the United States which focus on the ordinary lives of Palestinian people. And the positive message embodied by Muna's talk with her son at the end of the film where she urges him to push forward in life despite obstacles is to be commended. Amreeka does hold your interest throughout but too many of its characters are rooted in caricature, failing to provide enough fully drawn portraits of real people.