My wife loved this one... but she knows a little Morocccan Arabic, and part of the film's appeal is nostalgia for the family life of Moroccan immigrants to Israel. Several language consultants are credited, and I'm assured that the language, like the customs, is vividly and amusingly recreated. I have to say a lot of it passed me by, and apparently that goes for much of the population. At a morning showing a couple of weeks after this film premiered, the two of us were alone in the auditorium.
Parts of the film, particularly near the beginning, come across rather like a stage play as members of a large family sit around trading colorful remarks. The film does remind us increasingly with visuals, though, that we're in a poor desert town, presumably Sderot.
A young member of the family likes to videotape everyone else. Such a device can be a warning sign-- a sign that the screenwriter can think of no other way for the characters to speak their minds, or that he can't write a story that isn't about himself-- but in this case it's just a quirk and the family is remarkably capable of ignoring the videocamera until it gets to be too much for them.
It's not always easy to remember who fits in where, but we come to accept that the main character is the one played by popular TV actor Arik Mishali. He's a compulsive gambler, and he's menaced by a debt collector who, for some unaccountable reason, speaks only in English. That arc seems to conclude early, yielding place to a couple of rather rushed love stories, but there are surprises yet to come before the end. I suppose the structure of the script is what sets it apart from other family-centered Israeli comedy/dramas. That, and a praiseworthy reluctance to emphasize strident caricature.
