30
Alternating abruptly between road-trip comedy and war-through-a-child's-eyes melodrama, the film's tonal inconsistency prevents the story from gelling.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
30
Though Dorff isn’t the only thing wrong with Zaytoun, he is still its biggest liability, and the rare case where one miscast role ruins a film’s essential premise.
40
The fact that the film’s title is an Arabic word for “olive,” as in holding out said branch to your foes, gives you a sense of what Israeli filmmaker Eran Riklis (Lemon Tree) is going for: a melodrama with a do-we-all-not-bleed? moral.
30
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
In grabbing for the heart this one-size-fits-all fable sadly ignores the mind.
55
Zaytoun is different: This time, the director allows his characters to cross the frontier. That makes for a story that's sweeter, but also less convincing.
60
Neatly juxtaposes the beauty of the landscape with the enmities it engenders.
40
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
It's quite a sweet idea, with a liberal attempt at balance, though Palestinian audiences may query the idea of making their half of this equation a child, and Fahed's motivation for defying his elders in quite so disloyal and dangerous a way, is never convincingly explained.
40
The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Dalton
The film’s facile message of cross-cultural unity owes more to fairy tale than reality, but the action is slick and the story gripping.
12
Slant Magazine by Tomas Hachard
It misfires in tone, depth, and political tact, dumbing down rather than providing new insights into the Israel-Palestine conflict.