David & Layla (2008)

Synopsis: Inspired by a true story, David is something of a public access cable celebrity, host of an interview show called Sex & Happiness, a show that playfully explores the correlation between sex, spice, and contemporary coupling. During a taping of one episode he almost literally... Inspired by a true story, David is something of a public access cable celebrity, host of an interview show called Sex & Happiness, a show that playfully explores the correlation between sex, spice, and contemporary coupling. During a taping of one episode he almost literally trips over a voluptuous, mysterious, sensual Middle Eastern dancer named Layla. Though he’s already reluctantly engaged to another woman, Abby, a svelte, Jewish, kick boxing instructor, David falls head over heels for Layla, who turns out to be a Kurdish Muslim refugee. Despite this seemingly insurmountable hurdle David pursues Layla with reckless abandon, setting off a playful veiling and unveiling of the differences and similarities between the two cultures. Theirs is truly a match made in heaven, a place they might just wind up in a lot sooner than each other imagines!

As if their own personal cultural differences were not enough to derail this funny, obsessive romantic entanglement, here come the parents. David’s parents, observant conservative Jews, greet the news with equal feelings of rejection, and abandonment. Layla’s uncle (her family was killed in Iraq by Saddam Hussein) is as radical a traditionalist as David’s mother and father are devoted Jews.

At David’s editing bay, during a rare, touching and sober vignette, Layla provides a brief but shocking history into the genocide of Kurds in 1988 in Halabja, Iraq. But lighthearted repartee, and sexual chemistry, is never far behind. David invokes the names of Jewish legends like Freud and Einstein while Layla explains that the ones and zeroes and the writing of algebraic code for modern computers were revolutionized by al-Khwarizmi. They navigate the Hudson River by boat, exchange words of ardor over wine (and, of course, food), and debate their differences in the rain by the light of the moon.

Meanwhile, Layla is having immigration problems, which would seem to make David’s proposal of marriage a welcome proposition, especially given her parents choice of a mate: Muslim Dr. Ahmad, a wealthy, middle-aged ex-patriot who holds no sense of adventure or romantic potential for Layla.

Still and all, Layla will not accept David as a husband unless he agrees to become Muslim, a plan that doesn’t even sit well with the local Lebanese Imam, that is, until Howar, Layla’s musical accompanist, explains that one of the most revered translations of the Koran was written by a Jewish scholar. Just when Solomon-like wisdom peeks its head around the corner comes another revelation: that vasectomy David had earlier been subjected to, at the teasing suggestion of his ex-fiancée, Abby.

David & Layla is a warm, big-hearted comedy-romance. It’s a timeless story about the differences that threaten what is pure about love. On a lighter level it’s the Hatfields vs. the McCoys, it’s Romeo and Juliet, without the poison and the daggers, it’s about bagels and it’s about…spice. On a more serious level it’s the mixing pot of the Middle East in America, specifically in Brooklyn. It’s finally Layla who teaches David more about love, and love and sex than a whole season’s worth of his television show could possibly convey. And it’s finally David who ultimately strikes a delicate balance that will allow his absolute love for Layla to become a romance for the ages.--© Official Site [More]