Arranged
Directed by Stefan C. Schaefer & Diane Crespo
Dutiful and religious in a time when neither are in fashion, the two young women in Arranged—one Muslim, the other Orthodox Jewish—are drawn toward one another as they navigate traditional ways of finding partners in a nontraditional world. Nasira (Francis Benhamou) and Rochel (Zoe Lister-Jones) are teachers at the same school and find themselves fighting similar battles: a patronizing school principal and family pressures.
Arranged takes on some tough questions about the role of tradition in finding a mate, and vividly portrays the challenge of reconciling modernity and faith. As Nasira and Rochel share each other’s lives, however, they start shaping each other. In one dewily poetic scene in which a secret is shared—a touch remembered, an electric thrill, the look of longing on one woman’s face—Arranged lays out the magic and messiness of friendship between women, and an outsider becomes a privileged insider.
It is remarkable that Arranged never feels voyeuristic. The camera flits through candle-lit rituals, a sunny graveyard and contentious family dinners and streets full of non-English conversations with an ease and lack of judgment that humanizes the characters and their dilemmas, rather than exoticizing them. The story breathes evenly and calmly in the hands of the directors, Diane Crespo and Stefan C. Schaefer, who worked closely with Yuta Silverman, executive producer, whose real-life experience inspired the script.
The film has an endearing “Made in Brooklyn” feel, but most of the time, unfortunately, it mines the same slapstick situations and characters—boy-meets-girl under parents’ eagle eyes, the gossipy neighbor, the self-absorbed suitors—that are now clichés of arranged marriage movies.
In the end, the film does little justice to the insightfulness of the tough questions it begins with. After introducing its unusual narrative and complex characters, it rapidly transforms into a contrived romantic comedy. The young men who come calling at both homes—Jewish and Muslim—are caricatures. The friendship between the two heroines is never tested to an extreme. And, finally, the cloying happiness of the final scene—complete with strollers and knowing giggles—is, alas, a tad too arranged.
Directed by Stefan C. Schaefer & Diane Crespo
Dutiful and religious in a time when neither are in fashion, the two young women in Arranged—one Muslim, the other Orthodox Jewish—are drawn toward one another as they navigate traditional ways of finding partners in a nontraditional world. Nasira (Francis Benhamou) and Rochel (Zoe Lister-Jones) are teachers at the same school and find themselves fighting similar battles: a patronizing school principal and family pressures.
Arranged takes on some tough questions about the role of tradition in finding a mate, and vividly portrays the challenge of reconciling modernity and faith. As Nasira and Rochel share each other’s lives, however, they start shaping each other. In one dewily poetic scene in which a secret is shared—a touch remembered, an electric thrill, the look of longing on one woman’s face—Arranged lays out the magic and messiness of friendship between women, and an outsider becomes a privileged insider.
It is remarkable that Arranged never feels voyeuristic. The camera flits through candle-lit rituals, a sunny graveyard and contentious family dinners and streets full of non-English conversations with an ease and lack of judgment that humanizes the characters and their dilemmas, rather than exoticizing them. The story breathes evenly and calmly in the hands of the directors, Diane Crespo and Stefan C. Schaefer, who worked closely with Yuta Silverman, executive producer, whose real-life experience inspired the script.
The film has an endearing “Made in Brooklyn” feel, but most of the time, unfortunately, it mines the same slapstick situations and characters—boy-meets-girl under parents’ eagle eyes, the gossipy neighbor, the self-absorbed suitors—that are now clichés of arranged marriage movies.
In the end, the film does little justice to the insightfulness of the tough questions it begins with. After introducing its unusual narrative and complex characters, it rapidly transforms into a contrived romantic comedy. The young men who come calling at both homes—Jewish and Muslim—are caricatures. The friendship between the two heroines is never tested to an extreme. And, finally, the cloying happiness of the final scene—complete with strollers and knowing giggles—is, alas, a tad too arranged.
