Jaffa

Award-winning Israeli filmmaker Keren Yedaya offers a sudsy soap opera with Romeo and Juliet strains in Jaffa, which stars Dana Ivgy as Mali, the Jewish daughter of a garage owner (Moni Moshonov) who employs the Palestinian Toufik (Mahmoud Shalaby) as a mechanic. Mali and Toufik have a clandestine affair, and although they realize that neither of their families would approve of marriage, they secretly prepare to elope to Cyprus. But things turn problematic when Mali's hotheaded brother, Meir (Ro'i Asaf), gets into a fight with Toufik: Meir is accidentally killed and Toufik is arrested and jailed. Mali is pregnant with Toufik's baby, but she tells her parents that the father is an older married Jewish man no longer in her life. Nine years later, Toufik is released from prison, unaware that Mali has been raising their daughter with the assistance of her parents. Ivgy and Shalaby are attractive actors whose love scenes display a strong chemistry, but they're otherwise unable to breathe any real emotion into this predictable and frequently tacky melodrama. Not recommended. (P. Hall)