Excellent adaptation.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

For some reason, European films only use subtitles when the characters are not speaking in English. As the actors usually have strong accents they are unintelligible when they do use English. I also had a feeling that even when the actors were speaking in Arabic, French or Hebrew we were not always getting subtitles. Captioning was greatly missed.The other big problem was the miscasting. Jules Sutrik does not look Palestinian, being too light skinned, and did not look at all like his biological brother Bilal. Likewise, Mehdi Dehbi was just a little too dark and more strongly resembled Bilal than either of his Jewish 'parents'. The film would have worked much better if the actors had alternated the roles, as it was I found the miscasting distracting to the point of being unbelievable, rather like a vanity piece where an actor shows off by playing against type or sex. The switched at birth plot is as old as Methuselah and a favorite of Shakespeare, Gilbert and Sullivan and many others. Although it was interesting, the storyline became very corny at times with the families coming together just a little too quickly.

Two teenage boys and their families, living on either side of the Israeli-Palestinian border, come to know that the boys were accidentally switched after their birth in a hospital. Such a situation set across such an enmity-filled landscape could very well be expected to escalate into chaos and violence, but thankfully, the uneasy situation and the extraordinary story is well handled, and without being melodramatic.Lorraine Levy skilfully and essentially makes it a general human story, getting past its national and traditional boundaries. It tries to question identity in the face of change; genetics vs upbringing, religion, goals, where do we actually belong?, and what actually matters? The two teenage leading characters in the movie, Joseph and Yacine, deal with the situation and these questions with a certain level of maturity and sensibility, which comes from their background of education and non-inclination towards religious extremism. It also helps that the two sets of parents are intelligent and good-willed people who guide the boys to an informed and sensible transition. And that's where the beauty of the story lies.The acting by the two leads, Jules Sitruk and Mehdi Dehbi, and the remaining cast is commendable, but it's Emmanuelle Devos, as Joseph's mother, who stands out from the rest. The scene in which the details of the birth-switching is disclosed to the two families is quite heart-rending. And the scene in which Joseph, in a moment of inspiration, starts singing an Arabic song in front of his birth-family to distract everyone from the awkward atmosphere, is quite delightful.(A particular song used in the trailer as well as the movie, Yael Naim's 'My Dreams', is quite a beautiful and meaningful one)

I'd reached the point some time ago where I stopped watching films about the holocaust and the intractable Palestine-Israel situation. Then I saw a review of this film that suggested something other than bleak, bleak, bleak and get out the razor for humanity's wrist. So I watched it.It took the life-affirming premise that even in the worst of situations, which the dispossessed Palestinians have been enduring for more than 60 years, people generally want to live, laugh, have friends, love and, most of all, stay alive. Strapping explosives to your chest is NOT the norm there, even for impressionable young men.What I saw was a very human story of parents and children trying to come to terms with a sudden reversal of reality. Messy, untidy, forcing a rethink of lifelong prejudices in the face of a farcical bureaucratic mix-up.The mothers ache with a visceral sense of loss. The fathers quietly rage (and in one sequence not so quietly) in their dumbfoundment. The kid sisters take people as they find them. The boys are stupefied .. to begin with. Then the everyday takes over. Having to absorb it all, then go on living. And all get wiser, a little more worldly, a little less inclined to stereotype. A little richer.Unlikely? I don't think so. As has often been observed, "Travel broadens the mind." And there's nothing like a good emotional somersault to do exactly that. People can and do change. It didn't feel like a film, more like watching through hidden cameras as life unfolds.

What can I say? I love love love this perfect movie! Superb direction (I want to see more of her movies!), beautifully written, excellent camera work, editing, sound, extraordinary use of varied music, locations, casting - the acting is the best ensemble acting I've seen a very very long time! Emmanuelle Devos (Orith Silberg) is the best known, and she is her usual superb self, Areen Omari is a revelation as the arab mother, Khalifa Natour and Pascal Elbe play the "politicized" fathers with an aching poignancy, Mahmud Shalaby plays what could be a caricatured "villain" as a complex young man capable of growth, and the two leads: Jules Sitruk (Joseph Silberg) and especially Mehdi Dehbi (Yacine Al-Bezaaz; I want to see him in more movies!) play such complex characters with warmth, intelligence, bravery, and brilliance.This movie gets an A+. It's the best movie I have seen in 2013 (it was released in 2011 in France; this is the first I have ever heard of it now in 2013).the "making of" featurette is fascinating. It made me appreciate the movie even more.I urge anyone and everyone to see this one of a kind extraordinary humane complex intelligent moving and exceptional motion picture!!!! (: