The movie starts with a man and his daughter driving into town. At first his daughter is driving but as soon as they get to town the dad starts driving because it is illegal for women to drive. This sets the tone for the movie. We come to the fathers second wedding, so he has two wives now. He leaves the first wife with the kids at a house and goes to a new house with the new wife. He is absent much of the movie but comes back to meet the boy his daughter loves. He scares the boy away, never to be seen for the rest of the movie. And forces his daughter, Layla, to marry Munir, a man from the town. Layla starts to run but right before she gets to her boyfriend she stops her car and goes back because she realizes that she really can't run anywhere.

This film depicts a Bedouin family on the brink of changing traditions.When the father of the family takes a second wife, and the daughter finds herself in love with a boy from college. Each character must make decisions that will change the outcome of the family. Although a main theme is about woman living in world of strict traditions I think it is mainly about a family trying to make the right decisions for each other.Throughout the film the director will turn you against the adults, and then give you a window of insight that will allow you to sympathize with them. I was constantly urging the characters to do something, on the end of the seat, and although the film left me a little sad you must look beyond the film, to what it is trying to hint the future may hold, not just for the protagonists, but all woman around the world.I will certainly be thinking about Layla, her sister and what life has in hold for them, for a while.

I was vising my family in Israel and took advantage of the opportunity to watch this movie with friends. I prepared myself for a hard political movie, as some of the media said it was but found myself watching a beautiful non-political universal movie. Sure it is still a hard movie with an educational and sad message but it is a must see movie. We were 4 people and all of us were speechless in the end. Maybe as an Israeli with previous knowledge I had more insights and could understand this movie in several other levels but that doesn't mean that this is a great movie. Great job to all the cast and I hope it will succeed not only in the theaters across the world but may also be nominated for the Oscar this year. The cast and the story deserves it.

I saw this movie after it has received the Ofir award for best movie- the Israeli Oscar, which will make it the Israeli submission for the foreign language Academy award. I think it is a good movie in its novelty. The movie depict Bedouin life in modern Israel, although there is no sign really that this is the country where this story takes place, as the language is only Arabic and only an Israeli plate on the father's car indicates that the country is Israel. Much is already known about the treatment of women in Arab society, but here the father seems to be progressive: he sends his daughter Layla to school, and even considers university...she drives and believes that her father is different than other Bedouin fathers. To her dismay she finds that he isn't. On one hand the movie deals with the issue of polygamy, but is actually deals with all the issues affecting women in Arab society: the power of a husband to ban his wife and send her to her parents, the position of the father of daughters in the Bedouin society, the "do" and "don't" when it comes to family life. The movie revolves around the "must" issues. The father feels that the society expects from him to behave in a certain way, where the women in his life expect him to be different. The father might be willing to allow his daughter to drive and to study, but this seems to be the limit of his openness to Western values, to the huge disappointment of Layla.