In Between

R13

2016

102 mins

Directed by Maysaloun Hamoud
98%
77%
Drama
Award Winner

Three Palestinian women in Tel Aviv try to find a balance between traditional and modern culture in Maysaloun Hamoud's feature... More

Three Palestinian women in Tel Aviv try to find a balance between traditional and modern culture in Maysaloun Hamoud's feature debut.

"Lalia (Mouna Hawa), Salma (Sana Jammelieh), and Nur (Shaden Kanboura) share an apartment in the vibrant heart of Tel Aviv. Lalia, a criminal lawyer with a wicked wit, loves to burn off her workday stress in the underground club scene. Salma, slightly more subdued, is a DJ and bartender. Nur is a younger, religious Muslim girl who moves into the apartment in order to study at the university.

"Nur is both intrigued and intimidated by her two sophisticated roommates. When her conservative fiancé visits, he is horrified by her secular friends, entreating her to hasten their marriage, leave Tel Aviv, and assume her rightful role as a wife. She refuses, and his violent rebuttal leaves all of the women shaken. Salma and Lalia also face turmoil: Lalia has found love with a modern Muslim man whose acceptance proves less than unconditional, and Salma discovers that her Christian family in a northern Galilean village is not as liberal as they claim. These three very different women find themselves doing the same balancing act between tradition and modernity, citizenship and culture, fealty and freedom." (Toronto International Film Festival)

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Where to watch In Between

In Between is available to stream in New Zealand now... More on YouTube and Google TV and Academy On Demand and Beamafilm and AroVision.

There is no screening information for this title.

In Between | Ratings & Reviews

98_%66 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes® rating
77_%601 reviews
Audience score rating

"(In Between) makes its points with an impressive mixture of clarity and nuance."

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The New York Times

"What is most intriguing about In Between is how each woman is allowed to make mistakes and learn from them without any judgment on Hamoud's part."

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RogerEbert.com

"The film... can’t bridge the distance between the tragic circumstances its characters face and the rigid, somewhat didactic ways they’re depicted."

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Slant Magazine

"Unexpected yet credible detail keeps the film from feeling overly schematic, even though its characters are somewhat two-dimensional..."

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A.V. Club

"Hamoud’s unhurried, restrained visual style, allows for tension, emotion, and meaning to build together."

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Village Voice

"Concise yet enthralling."

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Little White Lies

"In Between is a great film.... It’s not always uplifting but it is compassionate and intelligent."

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Time Out

"Hamoud keeps the tone relatively light, the women's wit and vibrancy accentuated by a brisk pace and Itay Gross's colorful cinematography."

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Chicago Reader

"Balancing tragicomic relationship blues with sharp sociopolitical observation, Hamoud’s slyly subversive drama draws us deep into an often hidden world."

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The Guardian

"What makes this spiky dramedy so compelling are the Palestinian-Israeli protagonists, whose split lives have rarely been depicted on screen."

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Variety

"Engaging, if at times stagey..."

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Stuff

"In Between provides a glimpse of the battle faced by women of a younger generation with a crucial fighting spirit."

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Screen Daily

"An end to stereotyped Palestinian women."

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Hollywood Reporter

In Between | Details

Directed by

Cast

Award winner: Winner of the NETPAC Award (Hamoud), Toronto International Film Festival
Rating: R13, Violence, offensive language, drug use, sexual violence & content that may disturb
Runtime: 102
Genre: Drama
Country of origin: Israel, France