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France, Lebanon · 2007
Rated PG · 1h 36m
Director Nadine Labaki
Starring Nadine Labaki, Yasmine Al Massri, Joanna Moukarzel, Gisèle Aouad
Genre Comedy, Drama, Romance
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A Beirut beauty salon is the sacred meeting place of five Lebanese women struggling with life, love, and happiness. This romantic comedy centers the everyday lives of everyday women, unique in its refusal to reduce Beirut to a warzone and instead showcase the potential for sisterhood across generations.
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Beauty-parlor romantic comedy has been done to death and beyond, but what Caramel lacks in originality is redeemed by its exuberant sensuality and astute commentary on the way Lebanese women sit uncomfortably in the crosshairs of their country’s clash between patriarchal tradition and Westernized modernity.
It's a reassuring and delicious film, but in no sense an adventurous one.
Caramel is a sweeter and more believable version of "Steel Magnolias," Middle Eastern style.
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
It's refreshing for a romantic comedy not to follow the formula by rote. I only wish I could be as enthusiastic about the amount of screen time accorded to certain characters who are more tedious than endearing.
Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern
All but one of the actresses in Caramel are nonprofessionals -- not unprofessional, just untrained in the craft -- and they are, to a woman, enchanting. So is this Lebanese comedy.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
A Lebanese variation on sweetly soapy dramas about Women Who Bond With Wet Hair.
At its best, Caramel boasts a quietly engaging slice-of-slice casualness.
Caramel, by the way, gets its name from a blend of sugar, lemon juice and water that is boiled until it turns into a paste used to remove unwanted hair in the Middle East.
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