Miral (2011)
Average Rating: 4.4/10
Reviews Counted: 63
Fresh: 11 | Rotten: 52
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 4.5/10
Critic Reviews: 20
Fresh: 3 | Rotten: 17
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 5,229
My Rating
Movie Info
From Julian Schnabel, Academy Award (C) nominated director of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Before Night Falls and Basquiat, comes Miral, the story of four women whose lives intertwine in the starkly human search for justice, hope and reconciliation amid a world overshadowed by conflict, rage and war. The story begins in war-torn Jerusalem in 1948 when Hind Husseini (HIAM ABBASS, The Visitor, Amreeka) opens an orphanage for refugee children that quickly becomes home to 2000 orphans. One of
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Cast
-
Hiam Abbass
Hind Husseini -
Freida Pinto
Miral -
Yasmine Al Masri
Nadia -
Ruba Blal
Fatima -
Alexander Siddig
Jamal -
Omar Metwally
Hani -
Willem Dafoe
Eddie -
Vanessa Redgrave
Bertha Spofford -
Stella Schnabel
Lisa -
Makram Khoury
Governor Khatib -
Najwa Mubarki
Nawal -
Lana Zreik
Sara -
Doraid Liddawi
Samir -
Adham Aqel
Samir as a Child -
Yolam El-Karam
Miral as a Child -
Juliano Mer Khamis
Sheik Saabah -
Rozeen Bisharat
Yasmin -
Wadeea Khoury
Hind's Mother -
Shredy Jabarin
Ali -
Sanaa Ali
Hawwa -
Jawhara Baker
Samar Hilal -
Dov Navon
Yossi -
Hassan Taha
Khaldoun -
Shmil Ben Ari
Father-in-Law -
Salwa Nakkara
Nadia's Mother -
Mahmmud Abu Jazi
Mustafa -
Majd Hajjaj Rimawi
Stock Trader -
Faten Khoury
School Secretary -
Milad Mattar
Counselor -
Ruth Cats
Female Torturer -
Uri Gabriel
Interrogating Officer -
Rana Al Qawasmi
Leila -
Samar Qawasmi
Leila as a Child -
Frida Elraheb
Hadil -
Sama Boullata
Hadil as a Child -
Sama Abu Khdair
Rania as a Child -
Adnan Tarabshi
Hadil's Uncle -
Hala Kurd
Aziza as a Child -
Fatma Yahia
Tamam as a Child -
Lana Abd Elhadi
Tamam as a Teenager -
Rawda Suleiman
Tamam as an Adult -
Zohar Strauss
Policeman -
Loai Noufi
Abdallah -
Uri Avrahami
Adoption Officer -
Adel Abou-Raya
Hospital Administrator -
Jude Amous
Zeina -
Abdallah El Ackel
Child of Deir Yassin -
Miral Hasna
Child of Deir Yassin
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Miral Trailer & Photos
All Critics (63) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (13) | Rotten (53) | DVD (6)
What "Miral" lacks in performance art, Schnabel attempts to replace with design.
Top CriticMiral has the pedigree, the attitude, the weighty subject matter. It's just not much of a movie.
How can you appeal to both sides when you tell only one side's story?
"Miral's" agenda doesn't play to Schnabel's strengths. His best work on film is bold-stroke portraiture, evoking complicated personalities and emotions with dynamic, dreamlike imagery.
It's a miniseries awkwardly stuffed in the body of a two-hour drama about the Palestinians' long struggle against the Israelis.
...is [Schnabel] being this indulgent because he can't fully engage the noncommittal material, or are we just noticing the indulgences more because the material's so noncommittal?
This is what happens when a self-serious movie artist tries to impress his girlfriend.
Miral overrides its screenwriting flaws with Schnabel's uncanny sense of film art.
...sporadically engrossing yet thoroughly uneven...
A stunningly monotonous, shapeless motion picture, more enamored with its decorative presentation than the critical Middle East perspective it contains.
Schnabel dedicates Miral to "everyone on both sides who still believes peace is possible"-a noble sentiment, to be sure, but will anyone on either side really see themselves reflected in such a simplistic, ham-fisted treatment?
Though it self-evidently has a Message about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, [it] makes virtually no effort to clearly explain what that Message is.
A mess.
[T]here are plenty of nonpolitical reasons to frown upon Miral: it's simply not a very engaging film, even to those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause...
Might have been better as a documentary.
...if you're going to ask the audience to piece together the meaning of a scene for themselves, don't cue the conclusion with a soundtrack full of familiar emotional cues.
The director injects some showy images into the mix but, without a defined frame for Schnabel to paint in, "Miral" is an unholy mess.
Impassioned, but also dramatically disjointed and emotionally parched.
Schnabel is free to make a film sympathetic to the Palestinians, of course, but such distortions and selective history make this little more than an arty propaganda film.
It feels strangely undernourished, as if the filmmakers were afraid to really let go and express big emotions.
The didactic approach and hodge-podge structure diminish the film's heart and Schnabel's dreamy imagery.
The film is an uninvolving mess, though a thoughtfully composed jumble of emotions and time periods ambitiously reaching for a distressing screen poeticism it never achieves.
Audience Reviews for Miral
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Child of Deir Yassin: They killed my mother and father, nobody is left.
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- Miral: Don't mention my father.
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- Hind Husseini: This school is the difference between you and the children in the refugee camp.
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Latest News on Miral
March 25, 2011:
Five Favorite Films with Julian SchnabelAs an accomplished modern artist, sometime provocateur and acclaimed film director, Julian...
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