Amreeka

A divorced Palestinian woman and her son move from the West Bank to Illinois in Amreeka. Director Cherien Dabis chooses to tell the story in the most melodramatic, afterschool special, sitcom that's not funny manner that it's a wonder the film's getting a theatrical release.
Most of the acting is clunky and situations and dialogue are just embarrassingly bad. Most scenes involve the most unrealistic narrative points imaginable. A customs incident where the woman Muna (Nisreen Faour) loses $2500 reeks of desperate plot points. Like a person is going to carry that much cash and then forget about it. Likewise Muna attempting to pretend she works at a bank rather than at White Castle hamburgers fails at every turn.
The straw that broke the camel's back was Muna getting harrassed at work by schoolmates of her son and slipping and falling and seriously injuring her back. Rather than show the corporate burger company taking her to the hospital her relatives show up and limp her out the door. I wanted the cops to go arrest the lad who caused her to fall (by spilling a milkshake on the floor) but instead her son gets arrested and detained for beating up said lad. I'm getting a hernia from rolling my eyes at this film's stupidity.
Perhaps not oddly Amreeka has a following. It premiered in Houston at the local museum a couple of weeks back. The people in that audience must know what it's like to see the emperor's new clothes and try to pretend they had a good time. Amreeka is such an amateur outing you cannot even lump it in with regular bad films.