Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Nadine Labaki's debut features has a lot of the trappings of a typical rom-com but it eschews the stereotypical neat ending of the genre to become something more. Featuring a cast of non-actors (led by Labaki who takes on a leading role) the movie revolves around a group of women working in a beauty parlour in the Christian district of Beirut. Each woman has a problem with their love life and the other women in their circle help them along. Beautiful actors, great music and warm tones make this movie great to watch.

always love these beautiful foreign movies, Nadine Labaki has made such a beautiful piece of art showing feminine side of beautiful and romantic land of Lebanon. loved the way nadine labaki has shown different women from different religions but same culture of co- existence in Lebanon. loved the scene when traffic warden gives a visit to her beauty saloon. he looks kinda cute in that scene...while nadine labaki with her very dominating and beautiful eyes was looking so gorgeous.I hope she will keep making such beautiful movies showing different life styles of Lebanese people.

I saw this film recently on Netflix, and I was very impressed. My wife's father is Lebanese, and my wife has three older sisters, so the film resonated with both of us and we enjoyed it very much.*** MINOR SPOILER ALERT *** I won't go into all the plot points, which are well described in other reviews. One thing I did want to mention is a particular scene, probably the finest among many great scenes in the picture, where the shop owner Layale is speaking on a cell phone to her married lover while peeking out of the blinds of her shop. Across the street in a café is her admirer, a handsome policeman who patrols a beat near the shop. The policeman can see Layale through the blinds, and he imagines to himself that he is the one on the other end of the phone. He watches as Layale laughs, smiles, and acts coyly while speaking to her lover, and he invents dialog that would have elicited the responses that he is seeing. Finally, Layale hangs up the phone and catches a glimpse of the policeman across the street in the café. The final shot of the scene is the photo on the DVD cover.This is one of the most beautiful, touching, and clever scenes I have ever seen in a movie, and it bodes well for a long and marvelous career for Ms. Labaki. I look forward to her next films with great anticipation, and I hope I can see them sooner than four years after they are released.

Nadine Labaki's 'Caramel' is a typical girly film, a portrait of the lives and loves of the (female) staff and customers of a beauty salon. What makes it interesting (to a western European) is its setting: Beirut, and the mixture of universal themes and Lebanese culture. It's (mostly) nicely acted, but fundamentally, its mixture of female friendship and the dream of true love is not so different from a thousand other romantic dramas, and I failed to find much impact in its final conclusion when the leading character picks herself up after being dumped by having a haircut. The local colour ultimately flatters to deceive; this is a story could have been told anywhere.