Peace After Marriage

Standup comedian Ghazi Albuliwi wrote and co-directed (along with Bandar Albuliwi) this comedy in which he stars as struggling 30-year-old actor Arafat, who lives with his parents in Manhattan and brings no game to the dating scene. Addicted to pornography, Arafat joins a support group, where he meets Kenny (Mark Lukaj), who tries to set him up with dates but then hits on a win-win scheme. Arafat, Kenny decides, should marry a woman in need of a green card, guaranteeing him both sex and money. Complications arise over the fact that the bride-to-be is an Israeli Jew named Michaela (Einat Tubi), which causes major unrest in Arafat's Arab-American community. But the heart wants what it wants, as Albuliwi's obvious filmmaker inspiration, Woody Allen, once said, and Arafat and Michaela soon fall in love. Allen's earliest films inform the sketch-comedy orientation of Peace After Marriage's first third, while Manhattan-era Woody takes over for the remainder. There's also something Chaplinesque about Albuliwi, although the film draws most of its comic energy from the constant furor within a Muslim circle of family and neighbors, including Hany Kamal as Arafat's frustrated father and Hiam Abbass as his saintly if no-nonsense mother. While the plot is nothing new, and the comedy is somewhat derivative, this Middle Eastern rom-com set in the West should be considered a strong optional purchase. (T. Keogh)