CARAMEL World Cinema

ln her gorgeous and love-affirming feature debut – which was the sleeper hit of this year ‘s Cannes Film Festival – Nadine Labaki finds gold in the hot goo used to strip body hair. Set in and around a Beirut beauty salon, CARAMEL stirs together the stories of five women’s lives. In Beirut, five women meet regularly in a beauty salon, a colorful and sensual microcosm of the city where several generations mix, talk and confide in each other. In the salon, the women’s intimate and liberated conversations revolve around men, sex and motherhood, in between haircuts and sugar waxing with caramel.

Nisrine (Yasmine Al Masri) is a spirited bombshell on the verge of marrying a conservative Muslim even thought she is no longer a virgin. Jamale (Gisele Aouad), an aging actress and divorced mother of two, goes to absurd lengths to hold back time. Rima (Joanna Moukarzel), suppresses her attraction to women, until her own dream girl walks through the door. Seamstress Rose (Siham Haddad) deflects the attentions of a gentleman suitor to care for her older sister. And Layale (played by the stunning Labaki), the owner and lifeblood of the salon, carries on a hopeless affair with a married man. When her lover beeps his car horn outside the shop, the other women roll their eyes, but they let her go.