Synopsis
In a beauty salon in Beirut the lives of five women cross paths. The beauty salon is a colorful and sensual microcosm where they share and entrust their hopes, fears and expectations.
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Cast
- Nadine LabakiLayale
- Yasmine Al MassriNisrine
- Adel KaramYoussef
- Joanna MoukarzelRima
- Gisèle AouadJamale
- Sihame HaddadRose
- Aziza SemaanLili
- Fatmeh SafaSiham
- Dimitri StaneofskiCharles
- Fadia StellaChristine
Recommendations
- 75
Entertainment Weekly
A Lebanese variation on sweetly soapy dramas about Women Who Bond With Wet Hair. - 75
The A.V. Club
At its best, Caramel boasts a quietly engaging slice-of-slice casualness. - 75
USA Today
Caramel is a sweeter and more believable version of "Steel Magnolias," Middle Eastern style. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
Warm-hearted and accessible, it could benefit from good word of mouth in a limited art house run, particularly among audiences who like their rom-coms laced with foreign ingredients. - 70
Variety
Fresh from commercials and musicvids, novice helmer (and star) Nadine Labaki gathers five women around a Beirut beauty salon to address a range of issues facing Lebanese women -- from extramarital affairs to religious dictates. Low on calories and not especially original but always diverting. - 70
Village Voice
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. - 70
Salon
It's a reassuring and delicious film, but in no sense an adventurous one. - 70
Wall Street Journal
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.
