Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Josephina Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

dwpollar 1st watched 1/1/2012 – 8 out of 10 (Dir-Cherien Dabis): Well made drama about a single mother and her son moving from Bethlehem in Palestine to the US, and encounter many different obstacles upon their arrival. This movie is what you'd call a slice-of-life film but focused on a situation that isn't shown much in the movies. They decide to move right in the middle of the Iraq conflict to help the son with his schooling possibilities while suspicions are high against people from their area. This is seen from the perspective of non-Muslim middle eastern folk who just want to live their lives like everyone else. The son first has to encounter being a teen at a Midwest high school where he gets into fights and then gets arrested defending his mother – so things aren't so kind for him in his new surroundings. Nisreen Faour is wonderful as the mother and the rest of the cast is spot on. The experience is not all gloom-and-doom as the mother meets a sympathetic Polish Jew who is the principal of her son's school as well as a friendly teen she works with at the local White Castle. The only real downside to the movie is that it ends too soon. You get attached to these characters and want to see more, but it ends before any major conclusions – other than the fact that life will go on and things are looking up. Don't miss this gem of a movie that deserves a sequel or maybe a reality series on a cable channel?? – Anything to bring back these characters so will can follow them to see how things turn out in the end.

meeza I am going to immigrate this film review into the unchartered waters of Punsylvania! OK, so I overdo the pun thang in my movie reviews. But it is America, a land of freedom & expression! So I will do the same in my review of the independent film "Amreeka". Are you still with me? Or did you deport yourself to another entertainment medium? OK cool, you are still here! "Amreeka" stars Nisreen Faour as Muna Farah, a Ramallah single mother who moves to America with her teenage son Fadi. They move into the Illinois home of Muna's sister Raghda Halaby and family. Muna and Fadi find the U.S. migration transition process difficult as they encounter injustices and prejudices. Muna is constantly denied jobs for banking employment, which was her occupation in Palestine. So she has no other choice but to follow the trails of Harold & Kumar and visit the White Castle; which is where she eventually finds employment. It becomes a very self-demeaning situation for Muna in not earning the Mula she originally thought she would earn as a U.S. banking associate. Muna lies to Fadi and Raghda & family by informing them that she works in a local bank. She should really work at White Lies Castle! On the other Ramallahian, Fadi is constantly bullied at school by a group of young boys because of his ethnicity. Writer-Director Cherien Dabis presents her Dabis tale on the prejudicial hardships that good-honest middle easterners face in immigrating to United States with an authenticity that does not make one feel sympathy for them but rather root for their success in the so-called "land of opportunity". Nisreen Faour's heartbreaking & courageous performance as Muna was very solid! The fabulous Faour could be saying to herself "I am rica" if she continues her acting proficiency and eventually gets offered lucrative roles. She carried the film from start to finish! Hiam Abbass' supporting performance as sister Raghda was also worth noting and was not a "rag doll" effort. The Abbass also dove nicely into a deep supporting performance in 2008's "The Visitor". "Amreeka" does sometimes almost borders itself on plot boredom, but that never materializes primarily due to Nisreen Faour's superlative starring performance. Visit "Amreeka" today! **** Good

Turfseer 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.

hprockstar This story follows a Middle-Eastern woman as she struggles living in an military-occupied West Bank. When she receives notice that she has been chosen in a lottery for a U.S. Green Card, she has to make the decision whether or not to uproot herself and her son for greener pastures. After making the decision to go, leaving her mother and brother behind, she realizes that life in Amreeka (America) is not all that she had dreamed it would be. Facing prejudice everywhere she turns, she makes other hard choices in trying to support her family...the son she brought to America with her and the relatives that she is staying with in the Midwest who are facing prejudice and struggling to make ends meet. In the end, this film reminds the viewer of the importance of family and the sacrifices we make for those we love.