Caramel

Stream HERE

Our next Rialto Recommends is writer/director Nadine Labaki's 2007 debut feature CARAMEL. 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. CARAMEL is both an astute cultural study, and a charming comedic drama from a talented newcomer who would go on to write and direct Where Do We Go Now and Capernaum. The LA Times said "It is sweet but not saccharine, an intimate film that doesn't stint on the desperation and anxiety that go along with the search for love." While the Village Voice said "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." CARAMEL is streaming on Tubi or available to rent for a modest fee from GooglePlay, YouTube, Vudu and others.