Jalla! Jalla! (2000) User Reviews (34)

Nothing new, but very positive and funny

[jablan · 7/10 · 11 April 2003]

Notice that the similar movie as 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding', with the almost same topics dealing with (trouble of young eastern immigrants with their elders and their newly made relationships) succeeded to become so much popular and profitable.

Both movies are positive, funny and relaxing, but the reason that I prefer Jalla Jalla is that I had no impression that this movie was made to be "holywoodish", as I had watching "the wedding". This one is much more natural and relaxed, and does not present the immigrants as bunch of conservative, raw and uncivilized people.

After a lot much more praised Holywood crap, this is a movie I watched without having a sense of wasted time after.

Genuinely funny and happy drama comedy from Sweden

[Bogey Man · 8/10 · 1 July 2002]

Well this is pretty rare thing as I'm reviewing on Swedish comedy oriented drama, the genre I'm not so familiar with. I got the DVD for a birthday present and I probably would not have bought/rented/watched the film otherwise. The film is however pretty positive experience and recommended highly for most of the people.

It tells the story of Swedish youths that are having little problems with relationships, relatives, impotence and other stuff. I won't tell too much about the plot but there are many things found in normal every day life, too, so I think many will be interested once they start to watch the film.

The director is young and talented Josef Fares and many of his relatives also act in this film. The actors are mostly young people, like 1978-1982, and couple of older, too, but they all are very talented and natural. It took 30 days to shoot the film, and technically the film is very great as there are many different techniques used by the director and the story is also very interesting, and genuinely funny, not some stupid slapstick comedy.

The themes of the film are mainly about love and the total misunderstanding of it. It shows that love cannot be "arranged" or planned, it is born once the two right people meet and there is no need for help from another parties. This is important issue and is more powerfully depicted in Jane Campion's masterpiece The Piano.

There are also other things that are topical all the time, and the impotence of one character is one of them, despite I don't know how usual impotence is in these age groups of 30s or so. Well, that subject matter is also depicted warmly and with positivism and the subject matter of love is once again the main key for the problem. And many hilarious scenes about the impotence are also included!

The dialogue and scenes are often hilarious and I found myself laughing very much throughout the film. This is positive cinema at its greatest, and therefore this can be recommended for everybody with interest in cinema. There are many great actors and actresses in the film and they really do their job fine, and this was feature debut for many of the actors. It is not visible, though!

I give this positive piece of life 8/10 and high recommendations!

Well worth watching

[mgulev · 8/10 · 22 February 2003]

East is East was good, Bend it Like Beckham was predictable, but Jalla Jalla was really good. As in most romantic comedies, the end result will be a happy ending for everyone except the bullies and this movie is no different. But it does allow a closer look into the mindset of the "victims" of arranged marriages. It´s a really good movie. I accept the arguments that there are faults with the movie, but this wasn´t mass-produced in Hollywood, so that´s understandable and a charming factor, really.

The agony of choice

[ilja-2 · 25 July 2001]

I haven't left the cinema on such a high note in a long time; Jalla! Jalla! is a very funny comedy about a man torn between modern European and traditional Lebanese life, who tries to keep both his personae satisfied by continually compromising between the two. It is also a story of the friendship between this Lebanese second-generation immigrant and his colleague Måns. The story takes some time to unfold, but the film's perfectly timed pace makes it a joy to watch even as long as nothing appears to happen, and it only gets better once the action kicks in.

Jalla! Jalla! is about change: grandma is still firmly rooted in the old ways, dad keeps up appearances but turns out more flexible than you thought and Roro is, for all intents and purposes, just as much a modern Swede as a Lebanese. Although he is sincere and outspoken, he's just not able to totally say goodbye to his heritage and his roots. Finally, it was very gratifying to see a film about immigrants without some profound and ostentatious message, but more occupied with the sometimes impossible daily choices between morality and practicality one is forced to make despite the lack of understanding in one's surroundings (and truth be told, neither Måns nor Lisa display much understanding for Roro's predicament). A good 'small' movie, I hope to see more of this director and these actors.

A very cool Swedish movie

[Lady_Targaryen · 7/10 · 7 June 2006]

''Jalla! Jalla! '' is a very cool movie. I like European movies, so it was a pleasure to watch this movie, that has a very simple story but anyway can make us feel great.

Roro is a Lebanese immigrant who works in the parks in Sweden. His best friend is the Swedish Måns, who is also his colleague from the work. Roro loves his Swedish girlfriend Lisa, but his family thinks he has to marry with a Lebanese girl. Roro tries to avoid the marriage all the ways he can and when Roro finally decides to introduce Lisa to his family, they arrange a wedding for him with Yasmin, a Lebanese girl with a very stressed (and annoying)brother.

At the same time,Måns is having problems to get an erection, what lead us to funny scenes in the movie...

Let's go

[Karl Self · 6/10 · 22 October 2008]

This is a conventionally told double love story in a multicultural setting. If nothing else it's charming, and the actors are interesting and give good performances. I agree with a previous reviewer that it's like a quality version of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, without the Hollywood glucose all over it, and also in the less worn-out setting of Sweden. The story is well told and keeps up the interest, but the end is predictable (like I said, conventional) and a bit too cute. I didn't really understand the problem between Måns and his girlfriend (Jenny?), they seem to fall out of love just because it suited the plot, and I thought that Måns' and Roro's third co-worker, the soul brother with the afro, was a bit too cute and multi-cultural (yes I got it -- we're one big family of cool dudes). My favourite role was Roro's very cool father. And a protagonist in the shape of a pudgy middle-aged Arab, you don't have that too often in a movie, do you?

Amateurish, but OK debut

[Serva · 6/10 · 3 December 2001]

Since people in Sweden hardly ever go to the movies, I can partly understand that they think this is such a funny and nice little movie. In a way, it is. If you look a bit closer however, you will see that there are a number of flaws.

The script could use a whole lot more work. For some reason I can never understand, the characters start running at different parts in the film. They are spontaneously started to get chased by someone and therefore begin to run. This works fine in Warner Bros cartoons. But in a movie which remotely in any way is going to depict reality, no. Fares should have left this for his action movie that evidently is going to be his next project. The dialogue and the "funny" parts are other problems too. The comedy revolves mostly around the male reproduction organ, and the main character's dad using his big belly to ward of people he dislikes.

Some of the actors are not at all convincing, I hate to say it but it adds to the amateurishness of this production. Which I can live with to a certain extent however, since it is director Josef Fares' first real movie. It's still funny at times, Tuva Novotny carries her part great, but I want much more from Fares' next action movie to not feel let down.

Not preachy, but realistic and sometimes incredibly funny

[philip_vanderveken · 8/10 · 4 August 2005]

What can you expect from a Swedish comedy that is called "Jalla! Jalla!" and that has been made with an unknown cast by a man you've never heard of before? Quite a lot as this movie proves. It's subject certainly isn't one of the easiest, but Josef Fares made a good movie out of it.

Don't ask me what "Jalla! Jalla!" stands for, because I really don't know. I don't even know if it is Arabic or Swedish (I guess the first). But what I do know is that this is a movie about Roro a man from Lebanese origin who works as a park attendant with his best friend Måns. Roro has a Swedish girlfriend, something that he doesn't want his parents to know , and is forced to marry a Lebanese/Swedish girl. He likes her but doesn't love her, but decides to marry her anyway to help her, because if she doesn't marry, her brother will send her back to Lebanon to their parents. Måns has entirely different problems. He has a relationship too, but because he's having potency problems, his relationships isn't exactly going very well. While Måns tries to fix his problem, using all kinds of methods, Roro has to try to keep up appearances while stalling the wedding plans and maintaining the relationship with his unknowing girlfriend.

I must say that I didn't expect all that much about this movie. Normally a movie about mixed relationships or other multi-cultural society problems tends to get incredibly preachy. But not this movie, instead of showing how bad and racist the 'white man' is and how nice the 'black man', this movie has made a comedy out of it. And it works. The characters and the situations that they get in are believable, but more important also incredibly funny.

The acting too was very nice. I had never heard of any of the actors before, but I must say that they all did a very nice job. Most surprising is probably that most of them has never played in any other movie before or since this one. Does that mean that these aren't professional actors? I don't know, but I sure hope to see them again soon, because I really had a very good time with this movie and I can't remember being annoyed by it once. That's also the reason why I give this movie at least a 7.5/10.

Very entertaining

[AKS-6 · 6/10 · 31 March 2001]

It's great to finally see a Swedish comedy that is *just* a comedy. Usually, Swedish comedies has as much drama scenes as comedy scenes (e.g. Tillsammans) which certainly is no flaw, but it's nice to watch a "comedy comedy" for once. Jalla ! Jalla! is also great fun, it's often not only funny, but absolutely hilarious. A refreshing Swedish movie experience.

Delightful Swedish Romantic Comedy

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 28 May 2006]

The Lebanese immigrant worker Roro (Fares Fares) and his Swedish colleague and best friend Måns (Torkel Petersson) work in a park in Sweden. Roro and his Swedish girlfriend Lisa (Tuva Novotny) are in love for each other, and Lisa wants to be introduced to his family. Måns is having erection problem with his mate, but is looking for alternative methods to resolve the situation, since he is afraid of going to the doctor. When Roro finally decides to present Lisa to his family, they arrange a wedding for him with the Lebanese Yasmin (Laleh Pourkarim). Yasmin and Roro agree to pretend that they are going to get married to relieve the pressure of their families, leading them to a great confusion.

"Jalla! Jalla!" is a delightful Swedish romantic comedy, a must-see in the genre. On the contrary of Hollywoodian romances, the characters are common people, without fancy cars, expensive cellular and high positions, therefore absolutely believable. Tuva Novotny is amazingly beautiful, and her romantic pair is a man very thin and not handsome, in a non-acceptable Hollywoodian standard. The storyline is very simple, but there are many funny situations in this highly recommended entertainment. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Jalla! Jalla!"

Politically Correkt about multicultural Sweden

[Catharina_Sweden · 7/10 · 22 June 2013]

Sweden has in the last few decades accepted very many immigrants from Africa and the Middle East. This movie is partly about the culture shocks that come as a natural consequence. Although I must say the movie is very Politically Correct. The reality, when a girl from the Middle East refuses to marry the man her parents have chosen, and instead gets together with a Swede - has on many occasions been much worse than the "liberal and funny" ending of this movie...

Still, a foreigner could probably learn a lot about modern Sweden from it. The atmosphere is right. There were also some funny episodes - for example the one with the dog Rambo. And some funny and likable characters - such as the Libanese middle-aged father and shop-keeper.

The only character (or maybe actor) that was not just right, was Paul. He was too exaggerated as the archetypal Middle East brother, at the same time as he did not play an Arab very convincingly. He looked and sounded too European, and his accent was obviously fake.

As most modern Swedish movies, "Jalla Jalla" comes through as quite low-budget and amateurish. Also, I think there was too much sex, violence and rude language in it - which is, I am afraid, also quite typical of modern Swedish movies. Still, I recommend it for light entertainment in the company of adults only!

nothing serious, just lots of fun

[niklas84 · 10/10 · 16 February 2003]

this movie is not trying to be a serious movie. It's just alot of fun, i laughed my ass off at the cinema, and so did the whole audience. The story is not complex. It's about a young man wich father wants him to get married with a girl from his own country, but he loves a swedish girl...

A great debut

[soulfighter · 7/10 · 18 April 2003]

This a very pleasant movie. The story is told in a simple and humorous way. It's about some serious stuff like arranged marriages, refugees, culture chocks and impotence, but the story is served as a nice little comedy. Sweet and moving.

Palla! Palla!

[Torgo_Approves · 3/10 · 5 February 2007]

Lame. Lame. Lame. Ultralame. Shall I go on? There is one, I repeat *one* funny scene in this entire, drawn-out, anti-amusing Amateur Hour Special of a film: Fares Fares' fat father knocking someone over with his beer gut. That's it. The rest of this shockingly mediocre pile of nothingness consists of the usual trademark bored-looking Swedish "actors" delivering dialogue which goes into one ear and out of the other, a banal story, sloppy direction and, well, little else worth mentioning. Nepotistically cast Fares Fares is as charismatic as a chartered accountant and his nose rivals even that of Adrien Brody in terms of sheer ridiculous hugeness. Torkel Petersson should only work with Lasse Spang Olsen. The rest of the cast is, luckily, easily forgettable, whereas Fares' humongous, titanic nose will forever haunt me in my dreams.

Josef Fares helps ruin Swedish cinema. Don't support him and his nonsense. Jalla Jalla is to comedies what Arnold Schwarzenegger is to character acting, Kopps would have been much more respectable if it had been a no-budget Youtube video, and Zozo was simply the most pretentious, pseudo-touching garbage ever unleashed by a Swedish director. Wake up and smell the roses: Swedish movies can be so much better than this, so stop pretending Fares' flicks are worth watching simply because they're "good to be Swedish". Please.

Best Swedish Comedy in Years

[JK-47 · 3 January 2001]

This film marks the beginning of a career that hopefully will spawn number of good films in the future. Little known Fares has made an intelligent and very funny film. I totally recommend all people who have the opportunity to see this movie.

Fabulous dramatic comedy!

[tor.saether · 8/10 · 14 June 2001]

This movie is so good! In many ways it defies categorization, but first and foremost it is indeed a comedy. Great comedy, too. Still, there's more. Much more.

Sure, there are lots and lots of big laughs all the way through, but this movie also has a very becoming, profoundly serious side to it.

"Jalla! Jalla!" is not dealing with racial issues so much as with human - or perhaps cultural - ones. There are two main dramatic components: First, we have the question of arranged marriages, and second, the question of impotence. Both problems set off an avalanche of almost slapstick-like comic situations, but still, we never forget the seriousness of these matters.

It may be obvious, but if you liked "Fucking Åmål" and "Tilsammans", I'm positive you'll like this one too. 8 out of 10 points.

Funny and rude, what a combination!

[timelord-3 · 9/10 · 1 August 2001]

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** What sort of film do you get when you cross a Lebanese marriage, a Swedish girlfriend, a manic muscle head with a dog called Rambo and sexual impotence? You get the riotous romp, Jalla Jalla, a fantastic film from Lebanese born director Josef Fares.

Best friends Mans and Roro are in their twenties and work as park attendants cleaning the duck pond and picking up dog s***, but nevertheless still think they are cool! Their lives stroll calmly and peacefully along until, suddenly, Mans can't get it up for his wife any more and Roro finds out he has only a week to avoid being married off to a good Lebanese girl by his father!

Roro has a Swedish girlfriend he has been planning to introduce to his strict family but has lacked the courage until it's too late. Now his father has brokered an arrangement for him to marry the teenage Yasmin, and her brother seals the deal. Neither of the youngsters wants to get married but they pretend to agree to buy some time. Meanwhile Mans tries everything to correct his problem, from sexual games to whips, a penis enlarger and a gigantic dildo!

All this might seem a little sick and perverted, but the style with which Josef handles it is to his credit. There is barely a moment in the film where you are not either laughing out loud or enjoying the wry comedy that comes from cultures colliding.

Josef's real life dad plays the father in this film to his real life son, so Jalla Jalla is a real family affair. The dad is very funny, especially in the way he deals with any trouble. I have a 'gut' instinct he would be very handy in a fight!

The film's title translates as 'Hurry! Hurry!' from its native Arabic and serves as a good description of the frenetic pace of this charming comedic look at cross-cultural clashes and love in times of integration. 9 out of 10.

Charming

[shaid · 8/10 · 27 September 2001]

*Spoiler* *Spoiler* *Spoiler*

This is the story of Roro (Fares Fares) a third generation from a Lebanese family who now lives in Sweden. He has a girlfriend, with who he is very much in love, but his family, not knowing about his girlfriend, want him to marry in an arranged marriage to Yasmin(Laleh Pourkarim). Such a story can easily becomes a heavy melodrama which can make you cry. However Josef Fares (director & writer) chose a lighter tone and made a heart warming comedy. Through the comedy he manage to convey the difficult situation that children from conservative families face when they have to choose between their tradition and the western way of life where they grew up. It is a no way situation and a constant struggle and yet the film leave you with the feeling that you can survive such a situation. But you need to make a choice which is the best for you. Another thing about arranged marriage,which the film doesn't clearly say, is that it sometime used as a peace treaty between rival families. You can get the idea of it when you see what happens to the wedding celebration when Roro announce that he will not marry Yasmin.

There is another story going on and it is the one of Mans (Torkel Peterson) who is impotent. Through this story Fares Fares try to tell us that there is a connection between love and sex.(some of the funniest scenes in the film involve the character of Mans).

The film is very natural in his tone. The dialogs sound as if spoken from real peoples(and it helps that most of the actors are not professional ones).

This is not a perfect film. It has its flaws(like: How on earth did Paul the brother of Yasmin find about Lisa?), and if you look hard you will find them but if you let your self relax you might enjoy a movie that take over you quite by surprise and is charming and very heart warming with a light approach which help to convey a serious subject.

...not precisely as good as East is East

[silviopellerani · 5/10 · 4 April 2003]

The promises were all pretty good, same producer as "Fucking Amal" and Together: Lukas Modysson, the one who is part of the newest Swedish generation of innovative of directors in Sweden; but I am afraid the final result was well far from the expectations...

Josef Fares is a young director from Lebanon who wanted to develop in a funny way the already too much seen cross fertilization between different religions in Western Europe, same topic of East is East or Dreaming Beckam; this time the plot is shot in a Swedish town with two main male characters whose lives are linked by a common job. One of them, acted by Fares Fares in the role of "Roro", is the typical young man who was born in Sweden, so well adapted and completely almost "swedish" but his family is still attached to their tradition and religion, so they do not accept easily a non arrange wedding. Beside this, the film develops also a normal Swedish couple which has become in crisis, and this is shown by the impotence of the guy.

There are some funny situations but the final results is poor and most of the situations are well superficial and not specifically well defined.

The results is a very commercial film, poor of content and not original at all, a positive point is that is free of violence.

Rating: 5/10

If this isn't funny, what is?

[henri_aqua · 11 March 2002]

This is a multi-cultural comedy. With true love. True sexual problems. A family trying to match-make the wrong couples. Pitbulls. Vacuum pumps. Swedish chewing tobacco. And a parrot who swears in Arabian.

The acting is superb. The story is serious enough to make the characters all the more lovable. Go see it! Now!

A feel good movie about a serious subject

[eviber · 10/10 · 6 January 2001]

I haven't felt so good about a movie in months. It is a funny movie which at the same time makes you aware of cultural differences in Sweden of today. What amazes me is that so many of the brilliant actors are not professional actors, but the director's immediate family members. I can't wait to see Josef Fares' next movie.

Rent this one!

[auxbla · 8/10 · 18 April 2003]

A simple, nice comedy. It's a typical story as you'd find in many American 'big-buck' productions, but because this is a Swedish-Lebanese production, it immediatly draw my attention. I always love to see unkown actors in good movies, they seem more 'real' than the settled actors.

Very funny movie. Another nice Lebanese production (Lebanese-French actually) is 'West-Beyrouth' check it out, absolutely worth seeing!

A great comedy over love, sex, and traditions

[zozo-43 · 10/10 · 11 October 2001]

You can not but fall in love with the light-heartedness of the actors and the humor of the settings. Great work that doesnot only introduce you to two cultures (Lebanese and Swedish) but also gets you involved in the plot. I am just disappointed as to the negativity when it comes to the Lebanese stance of the director who is Lebanese in origin.

An awful movie (2 of 10)

[Lineker · 2/10 · 2 May 2001]

If this movie would have been in English, all critics would have trashed it. The language is extremely bad, the scenes are awfully directed and it's not at all funny. After the movie I thought that this movie could have been written by an 8th grader, at least if you consider the lack of believable characters and the fixation on certain male body parts. (oh, on dogs as well...) The story is just plain nonsense compared to the more mature Vingar av glas that premiered almost at the same time. Of course the public chose Jalla! Jalla! while Vingar av glas got little attention.

What was really disturbing for me was the fact that the movie looked really bad. That was probably due to the fact that first time director Josef Fares used really cheap camera equipment and then decided to just play around with it, for fun I suppose. The result, however, is a movie that can easily be split into 12 short films with a new directorial style in each one of them. This was very frustrating. Maybe Josef Fares should have stayed with his short films since that seems to be the only art form he can master.

Another disturbing fact is that the story does not hold together. At several times in the middle of the movie, the story has to move on very quickly and the characters then run into one another in a way that is just too unbelievable.

And then I have not mentioned the 2-dimensional characters, especially those in the supporting roles.

Even though I consider this one of the worst Swedish films of the 90s as well as one of the most overrated, it is kind of understandable that the public liked it. I mean, bad taste has always been the trademark of the masses...

I'm more surprised that the critics enjoyed it. They should have known better...

Grade 2 of 10

Oh,No.Not again!

[tomtext · 7 February 2003]

One more Swedish movie with absolute nothing to say. The story about two friends,one of them forrigner who will married a Swedish girl,and the otherone,a Swedish man who have sexual problems. is so boring,bad acted,bad script that you will leave this after 5 minutes. One of the worst Swedish movie I ever have seen. Rating:0 out of 5.