This warm and breezy romantic comedy from director Jay Jonroy explores an interracial romance between the unlikeliest of partners: a Muslim refugee and a New York Jew. David Fine (David Moscow), the host of a Big Apple man-on-the-street TV show called "Sex and Happiness," never expected to meet and fall in love with a Middle Eastern immigrant - particularly given his marital engagement to a Jewish partner, Abby (Callie Thorne). But his path soon intersects with that of Layla, a young woman
orphaned when Saddam Hussein's troops gassed the rest of her family. She now lives with relatives in Manhattan, and (unbeknownst to the kinfolk, who believe she's a nursing student) supports herself by collecting under the table for a slightly suggestive dance act - the warm-up for a local belly dancer. With deportation looming, Layla looks for an out; a customs official suggests a marriage of convenience, but that soon becomes unnecessary when Layla meets David and deep, abiding love blooms. . . to the horror of both families. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
Inspired by a real-life couple now living in Paris, David & Layla is suffused with the warmth and passion of filmmaker Jay Jonroy, whose own family was victimized under Saddam Hussein.
The road to formulaic romantic-comedy complications and ethic clichés is paved with good intentions in first-time filmmaker Jay Jonroy's cross-culture love story, which might as well be called My Big Fat Kurdish Wedding.
Anyone can grasp the issues explored in Jonroy's comedy, and occasional missteps are easily forgiven when something new (along with a feast of great-looking food) is being brought to the table.
A spread-thin but likable concoction that sets out to be a cross-ethnic romance, an explicit sex farce, a sober statement of the plight of the Kurdish people and, I think, a plea for world peace.
Humor and politics finally converge in what the story is all about: finding the good in those different from you. It's a happy ending that can be enjoyed by all.
The effect is not a rich film with a wide range of tones as the director may have intended, but a schizophrenic mess that ends up working as neither social message movie nor entertainment.
This is more suffering than should be asked of anyone to endure, but with admirable perversity, Jonroy decided to make a romantic comedy based on the love between an American Jew and a Kurdish Muslim woman whom the writer-director met in Paris.
I really enjoyed this movie. Funny, smart and romantic...a perfect chick flick in my opinion. I didnt even realize until the end that it was a true story.
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