‘Happy Holidays’ Review: A Dynamic Palestinian Family Drama Chronicles Arab and Jewish Lives in Israel

variety.com:

Siddhant Adlakha From Palestinian filmmaker Scandar Copti, the Israel-set “Happy Holidays” is a piercing, realistic family drama, the inflection points of which reveal deep cultural and political dimensions surrounding gender and ethnicity.

Like his Oscar-nominated crime drama “Ajami” (which he co-directed with Yaron Shani), Copti’s second feature follows an ensemble of characters — Arab and Jewish alike — to assemble a multifaceted portrait of life in Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city.

In depicting strained family ties and rocky courtships, “Happy Holidays” veers between anxious and joyful. Copti and cinematographer Tim Kuhn shoot each interaction with an up-close, handheld intimacy that not only magnifies the subtle, powerful performances of the cast (many of them first-time actors), but welcomes the viewer into each scene, as though it were a complicated family reunion.

At the center of its sprawling plot are four members of an Arab family, who share several casual, agreeable scenes together, but whose secrets from one another speak to a larger culture of silence, shame, social pressure and rampant prejudice.