Caramel, Nadine Labaki’s 2007 film from Lebanon, is about as close a film from the Arab world to those Western movies that have a wry eye on the trials and tribulations of the middle class as I’ve seen — think My Big Fat Greek Wedding, or Waiting to Exhale, or Tortilla Soup.   No immigrants being exploited, or prisoners being beaten, or plucky fathers making their way among the rubble, here.   But, as many viewers at Netflix point out, Caramel is better than your ordinary, uplifting story about what happens when everyone shares and gets along.

Caramel takes place in a Beirut beauty salon, where the ladies –and some of them quite lovely–  come to kvetch, and polish, be depilated  (with the caramel!)  and keep each other up to date — on their loves or lack of them, on aging, and caring for the aged (and crazy.)  Nothing profound, but certainly progressive — for the Arab world.  Can you say girl-attracted-to-girl?

And as always, seeing how life (if only in the movies) is lived in other parts of the world is a whole string of exclamations:  They do that!  They do that, too?  Oh, I’m glad I don’t live there!  Gee, I’d like to live there…. And besides whatever slice of life we want to take from the movie, we also come away knowing that Lebanese enjoyed this representation of themselves, on the screen.  It makes Number 1 in somebody’s list of Best Lebanese Movies.

I’m one who negotiates over “chick-flicks,” with my movie-going partner, and have seen my manly share of them.  While this fits the genre, sort of, it had more interest for me than most.  I’d say any one three growls away from being  a Sensitive New Age Guy would enjoy it.   Worth an evening.  You can even include popcorn without it distracting from deep  subtleties, hidden meanings or reading the sub-titles.