Arranged (2007)

Directors:

Diane Crespo
Stefan C. Schaefer

Writers:

Stefan C. Schaefer (story)
Stefan C. Schaefer (written by)

Release Date:

9 January 2009 (Brazil)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Tagline:

Friendship Has No Religion

Plot:

ARRANGED centers on the friendship between an Orthodox Jewish woman and a Muslim woman who meet as first-year teachers at a public school in Brooklyn...

Plot Keywords:

Friendship | Arranged Marriage | Muslim | Jewish | Cross Cultural Friendship

Awards:

6 wins

Cast

Zoe Lister Jones	...	Rochel Meshenberg
Francis Benhamou	...	Nasira Khaldi
Mimi Lieber	...	Sheli Meshenberg
John Rothman	...	Matan Meshenberg
Sarah Lord	...	Naomi Meshenberg
Trevor Braun	...	Avi Meshenberg
Doris Belack	...	Elona
Laith Nakli	...	Abdul-Halim Khaldi
Jason Liebman	...	Gideon
Marcia Jean Kurtz	...	Principal Jacoby
Peggy Gormley	...	Miriam
David Castro	...	Eddie
Sanjit De Silva	...	Jamil
Daniel London	...	Elliot
Max Shulman	...	Seth

Runtime:

USA:90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Hebrew | Arabic | Spanish

Color:

Color

Certification:

Singapore:PG | Brazil:12 | Argentina:13 | Australia:PG

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Cicala Filmworks

Trivia:

The film is loosely based on the experiences of Executive Producer Yuta Silverman, an Orthodox Jew who befriended a Pakistani Muslim woman through the public schools in Brooklyn.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Rochel comes home to dinner and sits down with the family. But she didn't wash her hands. Orthodox Jews wash their hands, say a prayer, and eat some bread before talking or eating at a meal. Only the religious Jewish viewers will look alarmed at this. But the director covers it. Rochel says the blessing before eating a meal with no bread.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Teacher: We're forced to handle the challenges of ESL. Different cultural traditions, everything they enter the classroom with, serious family dysfunctions. Basically our schools, New York city schools, are one big experiment, one big laboratory in this exercise we call the American Experience...

Better Romantic Comedy Than Most

This is a delightful and thoughtful comedy.

Two supposedly diametrically opposed worlds meet in Rochel (Zoe Lister-Jones) an orthodox Jew and Nasira (Francis Benhamou) a Muslim.

Both woman are teachers who find that as they both have to find their husbands through the arranged marriage process they have more in common with each other than the secular world.

The delight is that is is a pretty straight-up great romantic comedy - Rochel keeps being set up with the wrong guys, Nasira gets the embarrassing dinner etc; of course, the road to true love is not smooth...

It really is very funny, witty - and well acted, especially Francis Benhamou as Nasira, who is stunning and positively lights up the screen with her smile.

Just a lovely film that deserves all the play it can get, and definitely deserves to be seen by anyone who loves romantic comedies.

Warmly recommended.