Alex & Eve

source: Alex & Eve

Its an entertaining movie for an afternoon at home, you get a fair bit of laughs, enjoy the multi cultural aspects, a good dose of romance, beautiful catchy songs and good chemistry between the 2 leads. Yes, you most probably have seen the plot before in many inter-racial/religion romance movies but this movie still delivers on an entertainment level.

Quite enjoyed it - nice characters, clichée, but very relatable. The ones that gave bad reviews are fundamentlust, coz she should have married as her family whishes.

Generally I believe it is good movie with a happy end. It would be interesting to see a sequel because during the movie we heard some serious questions about the course of a marriage of two people of different religious background. Also in some part of the movie there was some short conversations about gays which of course is an other serious matter and it didn't have anything to do with the main story. The main story is about love. It is almost like Romeo and Juliet but fortunately it seems that the main characters live happily ever after. The happy couple wasn't so interested about faith and religious ceremonies, they are just interested to be and live together. I guess if they have differences during their marriage, they will find a way to balance or even to compromise to stay together for the rest of their their lives. It seems they are open minded and solve their problems and differences with deeply understanding and a little bit of humour. First of all , they are humans like everybody else. it is amazing the amount of pressure they both received from their environments and I thing only people who grew up in religious families could understand how horrible this pressure could be....

I normally do not care for forbidden romance type stories, but this one captured my interest on two accounts: (1) the two leads are from very similar cultures, and (2) it is set in Australia. The film is quite reminiscent of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, however, that movie focused on two very different cultures. Alex & Eve are both from Mediterranean cultures, and the movie makes it a point to highlight the similarities and the slight differences over which the characters fight. (And of course there is the issue of religion and historical conflict, which creates the strife between the two cultures). Next, it is an Australian production. I have had very limited exposure to Australian film or films set in Australia, so this was quite a treat. This particular story could have taken in any English speaking country with immigrant populations, but it adds a delightful Australian flavor that I haven't gotten elsewhere. (To be fair, I cannot speak to the authenticity of it.) I was expecting it to follow the usual clichés (and it does actually to a large part) and to skirt over the genuine conflicts this kind of cross cultural marriage can pose. To the latter point, I was glad to see the film address them head on. There were some things that follow movie-logic though and is hard to take seriously. The film was able to give us a sense of the different immigrant experiences of both families, which felt authentic when comparing to my own. I somewhat wish they had something unexpected in store for the ending, but at the same time, this story needed a feel good ending. It didn't need to be so over-the-top though. The movie does a decent job of depicting non-practicing characters clashing with their families who are devout. I personally relate to this. However, I do note that the movie is very much told from the lens of the non-traditionalist. From that lens, it is respectful of all sides, but from the lens of the devout, I don't think it would come off as particularly respectful. Overall, I enjoyed it more than I expected, and I enjoyed it despite the terribly cliched plot and shenanigans.

This is a film that is full of stereotypes, utterly predictable but with a happy ending. It's all fluff but ultimately gets the message across that love conquers all. The odd thing is that both cultures, Lebanese and Greek, are very similar, it's only the religion that would get in the way. Lebanese Christians are Greek Orthodox but I guess that would not have made a good story!

I thought this was a pretty good film. It is quite funny in parts, and heartwarming as well, and well, romantic. The only people not liking it here seem to be fundamentalists who are an every decreasing minority within Islam. E.G. reviewer "mohamedgamal-07660", who my guess is not in Australia, Canada or the US. Most third generation Muslims do not marry other Muslims. ESPECIALLY educated women are least likely to marry another Muslim. A huge portion of second generation (children of immigrants) do not as well. I am tying to figure out if this upsets the reviewer and what business it is of his anyway? How dare he call it an "insult to Islam" as if he is the arbiter of what Islam is or is not. If you know anything about the region where these people come from , with its may places, eg, Alexandria, Beirut, Istanbul, etc that for hundreds and hundreds of years had people living together and often intermarrying. These places only recently became mono-cultural, and that is artificial.

"The road to true love never did run smooth..." but nobody expected the path would be cobbled in baklava and good humor. This is a great film about the struggle to work past family assumptions in life and in love. Our group saw it at a recent film festival and it really struck a chord, especially for those who are caught between family/social expectations and our own thoughts on love, marriage and life in general. In the end, some of us like "Baklava" with walnuts and others like "Balawa" with pistachios... but we're all nuts. ;) Two thumbs up. No spoilers. Go see this one!

Christopherlesliebarratt's review was superb and was the reason I chose to watch this. I was not disappointed. I quite love to watch Australian movies despite the lack of box office success. And there are so many actors in this with whom one is familiar. Because of the diversity of our Australian population there are many stories like this. Some sadly will not end this way but hope is a good thing. Situations like this have been happening for generations and I surmise it will happen more and more as our depth of heritage bases grows.

So dull & very unrealistic. Why would a grown up man take love advice from teenagers!