Review: Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

Reviews

Caramel

Love, loniliness, aging, and bad hair

By PETER KEOUGH | February 6, 2008

2.5 Stars

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, 5. Rod Blagojevich, More

Topics: Reviews , Entertainment, Culture and Lifestyle, Movies, More

| More

Most Popular

The Current Issue

Table of Contents

Cover Archive

Masthead | Authors | Contact us

Blogs

Dub Comes & Goes: RIP Jesse Wolfe (a/k/a J-Dub), Father, DJ, Friend & Boston Hip-Hop Superfan
On The Download | October 25, 2012 at 9:22 AM

Meet the Mayor: The Framers' Workshop
Phlog | October 25, 2012 at 8:52 AM

[staff spinz] Savages, "Husbands"
On The Download | October 24, 2012 at 6:11 PM

PHX Countdown to Halloween: Night #8: Scary Movies
Phlog | October 24, 2012 at 4:56 PM

Attend this film event: The Art & Technique of the American Commercial at the ICA
Outside The Frame | October 24, 2012 at 1:55 PM

CURRENT CONTESTS

Win a pair of tickets to Guts & Glory: An Evening with Anthony Bourdain

KISS Monster Album - Giveaway

Flight - Advance Screening Passes

The Sessions - Advance Screening Passes

Rustic Overtones Ticket Giveaway

Warren Miller's Flow State Prize Pack Giveaway

Boston Book Festival- Page to Screen -Ticket Giveaway

Prize Pack Giveaway - Clifford the Big Red Dog

102212_ Rustic Overtones Ticket Giveaway

All Promotions . . .

ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH

REVIEW: THE BIG PICTURE | October 24, 2012
A word of advice to anyone who kills his wife's lover, fakes his own death, assumes the dead guy's name, and flees to a seaside Balkan town: leave the camera at home.

REVIEW: HIGH GROUND | October 24, 2012
In October 2010, 11 wounded Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans — blind, missing limbs, suffering from traumatic brain injury or PTSD — took part in "Soldiers to the Summit," a mission to climb Nepal's 20,000 foot Mt. Lobuche.

JOHN HAWKES ON BODY LANGUAGE | October 24, 2012
Ask any great actor — Robert De Niro, Christian Bale, Daniel Day-Lewis — if all that physical preparation is necessary for a great performance, and they'll say that sometimes you just have to put your body on the line.

REVIEW: THE SESSIONS | October 24, 2012
No other film this year pushes as many Academy buttons as Ben Lewin's adaptation of the true story of the Dorchester-born poet and writer Mark O'Brien, a paralyzed polio survivor who hired a sex surrogate to lose his virginity.