Caramel is a new feature written and directed by Nadine Labaki, a young Lebanese film maker who also plays one of the starring roles in this charming kind of so puppy a movie about a beauty salon in Beirut.
Ms. Labaki plays Layale who runs the salon, it’s kind of a slightly rundown place but it’s got a lot warmth and fellow feeling and solidarity,even, that comes from the friendships among the women, who make up most of this movie. They gossip about love, they worry about getting old, about men. And they follow their different story lines in a very relaxed, easygoing, somewhat sentimental and ever / like the melodramatically way.
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In some ways, this movie doesn’t break a whole lot of new ground, we’ve seen movies about female friendship before, but this one has a very special atmosphere, partly because the city of Beirut is so lovingly and beautifully rendered in it, and also because the women are played with such particularity and sensitivity. There is a nice relaxed easygoing feel to this movie. It’s very charming, it’s very touching. And you feel at the end of it, that, you’ve been invited into this world and made one of the girls.
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