The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
 
Features  |  Reviews
Best2012Vote-1000x50

Caramel

Love, loniliness, aging, and bad hair
By PETER KEOUGH  |  February 6, 2008
2.5 2.5 Stars
caramelInside
CARAMEL: Yet another beauty salon as microcosm.

Why are beauty salons so popular all over the world as settings for microcosmic movies? In this confection by Nadine Labaki, who also stars, the establishment does business in a Beirut blissfully unscarred by decades of civil wars and invasions, a city where the main problems faced by its five female protagonists are the perennial woes of love, loneliness, aging, and bad hair. Layale (Labaki), the proprietor, is a good Catholic, but she’s 30 and having an affair with a married man. Working for her are Nisrine, whose fiancé doesn’t know she’s not a virgin, and Rima, who’s just finding out she’s a lesbian. Jamale comes in regularly to look younger for the acting auditions she always fails. And Rose the seamstress is really old. The title refers to the syrup used to wax clients’ legs. Like the movie, it’s really sweet, but, as in a hilarious scene in which Layale applies it to her unwitting rival, it can really sting. Arabic + French | 96 minutes | Kendall Square + West Newton
Related: Flashbacks: July 28, 2006, Good news, bad news, Blown dry, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Entertainment, Culture and Lifestyle, Movies,  More more >
| More

 Friends' Activity   Popular   Most Viewed 
[ 02/16 ]   3rd Annual Boston Chili Cup  @ Ned Devine's
[ 02/16 ]   Boston Conservatory Dance Division  @ Boston Conservatory Theater
[ 02/16 ]   Jim Gaffigan  @ Wilbur Theatre
ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   REVIEW: CORIOLANUS  |  February 16, 2012
    In a line of fascist-style stagings of the Bard from Orson Welles's 1937 black-shirted Julius Caesar to Richard Loncraine's brown-shirted Richard III (1998), Ralph Fiennes sets his lean and hungry take on Shakespeare's tragedy in a mo dern-day war zone, paring the play to a brisk two hours.
  •   REVIEW: SAFE HOUSE  |  February 15, 2012
    Daniel Espinosa's over-edited but engaging spy thriller delves into edgy territory untouched by any of the numerous movies it imitates: it has Brendan Gleeson do an American accent.
  •   REVIEW: THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY  |  February 15, 2012
    The most touching love story and best children's movie in a long time, Hiromasa Yonebayashi's adaptation of Mary Norton's book The Borrowers employs old-fashioned animation techniques to create a world that is familiar, uncanny, and luminous.
  •   REVIEW: RAMPART  |  February 15, 2012
    The rotten cop flick has become a mini-genre of sorts, a subset of noir, going back at least to Orson Welles's Touch of Evil .
  •   REVIEW: THE OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2012: DOCUMENTARY  |  February 10, 2012
    The films in this program contain some of the most powerful images to be seen on the screen this year.

 See all articles by: PETER KEOUGH

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed