Amreeka

Amreeka

Muna is a non-religious Palestinian, so on both sides of the Israeli checkpoint through which she must pass daily to get to her job as a bank accountant, she is an outsider. She wants to emigrate to America with her teenage son, Fadi, where he can grow up in a less sectarian society. And then against all odds, she wins the U.S. lottery for green cards; so they set out for what turns out to be a new life that is more and also less than they expected.

And thus begins Cherien Dabis’s heartwarming and funny first feature, “Amreeka,” which means “America” in Arabic. To have arrived in America soon after the start of the war in Iraq was bad luck for Muna (Nisreen Faour), and for Homeland Security too, as it turned out; because anti-Arab sentiment was running high in this country at that time. Her life savings are confiscated at O’Hare by customs agents along with the cookie tin she kept them in; and she arrives in a distant Chicago suburb with no money but high hopes. “Occupation?” asks the immigration official. “Yes, we are occupied,” she smiles proudly.

They move in with her sister and her husband, a doctor. Fully qualified in accounting but wrong of ethnicity for a bank job or anyway that’s what happens Muna loses her chance at employment there; but picks up work at a White Castle nearby, hiding this comedown from her family. She can’t understand why anybody would want to eat one of those greasy sliders; although if it’s any consolation to the good sports at White Castle who allowed their real restaurant to be used as a location: they looked mighty appetizing to me.

Her son Fadi (Melkar Muallem) finds an ally in Salma (Alia Shawkat), a cousin about his age. She masterminds an American teenage wardrobe for him, and is a friend at school, where he is bullied for being an Arab (i.e., possible teenage terrorist). At home, his uncle the doctor (Yussef Abu Warda) sees his practice decline for the same reason. Do xenophobic Americans never realize that nearly all immigrants like their own ancestors came here because they admire this country? Somebody please explain that to Lou Dobbs.

“Amreeka” isn’t a story about American prejudice; it’s a story about America. When Fadi is bullied, fights back and is called into the principal’s office, his mother sheds her White Castle uniform and hurries to the school, deeply concerned. Here she encounters the Jewish principal (Joseph Ziegler), who proves to be not only sympathetic but responsive to her own warmth and charisma. He wonders if she’d like to join him for coffee…

Cherien Dabis incorporates some of her own story in “Amreeka.” A Jordanian raised in Dayton, Ohio during the years of the Gulf War, she was discriminated against; but then American anti-Arab prejudice seems always to consider all Arabs as being on the wrong side of every problem. To explain to such people that Palestinians had no involvement with Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait would be pointless they don’t think Arabs should exist at all, or at least should stay home.

My Irish-American ancestors faced similar discrimination; my German-American father was bullied during World War I; Japanese-Americans were locked up during World War II; and African-Americans hardly came here voluntarily. How soon we forget!

This is a feel-good movie, not a bleak political treatise; most of its hear comes from Nisreen Faour. You cannot help but smile when she’s on screen; some individuals are just born likable. Melkar Muallem could be the hero of any American high school comedy, regardless his Arab roots. Joseph Ziegler isn’t showing how tolerant he is by falling for Muna, he’s acting like any other guy would in his situation you look at this woman smiling and want her to smile back at you.

Watch Amreeka For Free On Gomovies.