#3: Arranged (2007)

The Buzz: "When Rochel (Zoe Lister Jones) and Nasira (Francis Benhamou) -- an Orthodox Jew and a Muslim, respectively -- meet as new teachers at a Brooklyn school, co-workers and students expect friction. But the women discover they have a shared expectation of entering into arranged marriages. As they experience tension between their traditional cultures and life in contemporary America, Rochel and Nasira form a special bond."

My Reaction: It's really not as annoying as the description makes it out to be, but it's hard to recap without putting the labels out there. The film addresses the problem of labels and difference in several scenes, though, from a patronizing principal who actually tries to give the women money to get a makeover, to a "unity circle" activity one of the women leads in the classroom. There's one scene where the two women meet in the park, each with a couple of kids in tow. One young boy asks each person in turn, "Are you Jewish?", full of skepticism and certainty about this similarity/difference thing he's learned about, and the expectation of exclusion. It's partly a treatment of space for tradition in the modern world, and partly about individual people overcoming difference, and that's about it -- it's nice, heartwarming, and not too preachy. From Film Movement.

3/1