The drama “Happy Holidays” is divided into four segments that overlap chronologically; each one elaborates a series of troubles that strain a Palestinian family in Haifa, Israel. Social conflicts — between religions, between men and women, between tradition and modernity — pervade every frame.
In the first segment, “The Peculiar Story of Rami and the Baby,” Rami (Toufic Danial), one of three adult children, learns that Shirley (Shani Dahari), the Jewish flight attendant he’s been seeing, plans to keep a pregnancy he does not want. This section is mirrored in the third strand, “The Not-So-Peculiar Story of Shirley and Her Baby,” which centers not on Shirley but her sister Miri (Meirav Memoresky), whose biases lead her into a poisonous deception.
The second and fourth chapters also form an axis, of sorts. They involve Hanan (Wafaa Aoun), the matriarch, who tries to ignore the financial straits that have led her husband (Imad Hourani) to consider selling the family home. She is also in denial about her daughter Fifi (Manar Shehab), who resists the kind of traditional wedding preliminaries currently underway for her sister (Sophie Awaad). Fifi, who deceives her mother about the contents of a medical file, is the movie’s heart — the focus of the opening and closing scenes.
Directed by Scandar Copti (the Oscar-nominated “Ajami”), a Palestinian citizen of Israel, the movie favors an unflashy presentation that allows its themes to emerge organically. But the interlocking structure, which owes more to the early work of Alejandro González Iñárritu than “Rashomon,” undermines sustained tension, and the dramatic architecture is slightly wobbly. Although Fifi’s parting segment lends itself to a powerful closing image, it does not play like the natural culmination of all the events that precede it.
Happy Holidays Not rated. In Arabic and Hebrew, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 3 minutes. In theaters.
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