You'd think it would be impossible to make a movie about Israeli-Palestinian issues that was not mired in political arguments. But filmmaker Lorraine Levy ("London Mon Amour") has done just that. In a simple, lovingly shot film about two families, Levy gently takes the bull by the horns and has it sit on the grass, where it stays calmly for the film's 105-minute duration.
A thousand things could go wrong when Orith (Emmanuelle Devos), a Tel Aviv doctor, and her husband Alon (Pascal Elbe) discover that their son Joseph (Jules Sitruk) was accidentally switched at birth with a Palestinian baby during a Gulf War bombing. Miraculously, they don't. Perhaps it reflects the mood among some people in Israel and Palestine that they've had enough conflict and are ready for a shift in the paradigm.
Still, as a proud father and an Israeli Army official, Pascal is devastated by the news. Across the border, parents Leila (Areen Omari) and Said (Khalifa Natour) are equally shocked. When the four meet in the hospital where the switch was made 18 years ago, it's the mothers who try to do the constructive thing by exchanging photographs of their sons and making terse conversation. Orith even manages to get Leila's home phone number. Before long, she tells Joseph the truth, which prompts Leila to do the same with her son Yacine (Mehdi Dehbi). The secret is out, and it's now up to the dads to acknowledge the massive elephant crowding the room.
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