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88There is, however, considerable humor to what might have been an exceedingly grim film, and most of it comes courtesy of Mona's slippery brother, Marwan (Ashraf Barhoum).
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80An extraordinary social comedy.
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80By crafting its message in mostly understated strokes, The Syrian Bride touches your heart, which you might not even fully realize until its deft, wordless final moments sweep by you.
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80Written, directed and acted with real compassion and sympathy for the humanity of its characters, no matter who they are or on what side of these multiple issues they turn out to be.
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80The Syrian Bride would be an out-and-out comedy were it set anywhere but in the Middle East.
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75Movies like The Syrian Bride are not overtly political, but nibble around the edges, engaging our tendency to take a big political position and then undermine it with humanitarian exceptions.
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Like the whole of this easygoing plea for a better future, it's sweet.
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75The result is both tragic and darkly comic - in this complex environment, blame and sorrow are locked in a partnership of absurdity.
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75Tackling serious issues with humor and understanding, the film portrays Mona's woes as a microcosm of the entire mess in the Middle East.
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75A keen observational seriocomedy, The Syrian Bride, like "Paradise Now," suggests that all residents of the Middle East, no matter their faith or their nationality, are more alike than not.
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75By focusing on one family's dilemma, the movie brings home the messy Middle Eastern situation in a way easier to relate to than the headlines and opinion pieces.
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75The Syrian Bride could be one of those big, teeming matrimony comedies like "Monsoon Wedding" or "Father of the Bride" but for the barbed wire running right down the middle of the aisle.
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75The triumphs still are affecting, the setting is compelling and some of the human moments amid the political circus and culture wars are downright moving.
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70The Syrian Bride manages to entertain even as it both moves and amuses.
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70The film uses the situation to evoke a sense of the absurd, sometimes with dry, deadpan humor.
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70On one hand, the movie is guilty of schematic arrangement...But at the same time, Israeli producer-director-writer Eran Riklis and Palestinian co-writer Suha Arraf use the device to reveal touching human complexity.
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70Director Eran Riklis entertains without sermonizing, though the story clearly identifies women as the region's best chance for peace.
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67While the film's depiction of bureaucratic frustrations and familial woe are universal, the characters themselves can be difficult to warm up to and often seem as arid as their surroundings.
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63This Israeli film gives us an honest look at situations we never see in the news. It may have too many flaws to be a good film, but for its content, it is a winner.
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60The Syrian Bride has no particular visual style, but it exudes affection, for its characters and their culture as well as the unprepossessing beauty of the scrubby terrain that holds them in thrall. Like all wedding films, it's essentially a comedy, albeit a sad one.
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60Ambitious screenplay by helmer Eran Riklis (best known outside Israel for "Cup Final") and former journalist Suha Arraf puts plenty of human flesh on its characters, who span the religious and cultural spectrum of Golan Heights dwellers.
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50Ultimately, The Syrian Bride becomes an overtly political movie, but with all its loose threads and random directions, it feels more like the pilot for an unmade miniseries.
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40A strangely inert affair. The stories devolve into one-dimensional squabbling and too many loose threads flap around the edges.
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