An Un-Orthodox Chick Flick

Writer and director Stefan Schaefer has created a new genre with his feature film Arranged: The"feel-good" Muslim-Orthodox Jewish chick flick. In a world where these two religions often clash, the parallel journey of two young, religious women—one Orthodox, one Muslim—is refreshing.

Rochel Meshenberg and Nasira Khaldi are first-year teachers in their early twenties at a Brooklyn public elementary school. Marked by their conservative dress and the fact that they don't pepper their lunchtime conversation with tales of topless sunbathing and hangovers, they stand out from the rest of the staff. Their religious choices are disconcerting for the school principal, Mrs. Jacoby, a secular New York Jew who offers them money to buy designer clothes, chides them for their acceptance of paternalistic patriarchy and drops into their conversations with such lines as "I thought your religions didn't allow you to enjoy life," and "I bet you get more attention wearing it [the hijab] than not, which kind of defeats the purpose."

Unexpectedly brought together by students' questions about the feelings of Muslims and Jews toward each other, Rochel and Nasira realize that they have much in common—both are meeting suitors for arranged marriages, Nasira's organized by her father and Rochel's by a shadchen.

The shadchen and Rochel's mother force Rochel through a string of Saturday Night Live-worthy dates, including an Eastern European man with the subtlety of a used car salesmen who can't wait to have the blue-eyed Rochel devote her life to serving him. Disheartened, Rochel drives her overly stereotyped mother into a state. "I don't bring this up to add pressure or guilt but the doctor says your father's blood pressure is elevated, dangerously elevated!" her mother yells, frantically knocking on her daughter's locked door.

Nasira's matchmaking fares better. Her first suitor, a toothless man twice her age, is rejected by her father after his daughter expresses her unhappiness and replaced by a good-looking engineering student. But Rochel has begun to have doubts about an arranged marriage. She spends a night with her liberal midriff-baring cousin who takes her to a small party, which to Rochel's sheltered eyes seems like modern-day Sodom. Escaping through a cloud of marijuana smoke, she returns to her parents' house to find a husband the proper way.

As in any good romantic comedy, fate is aided by the altruistic hand of her unlikely ally, Nasira. Nasira gathers information about an Orthodox computer science student with whom Rochel has fallen in love from a distance and, donning Orthodox dress, delivers it to the shadchen. After a few twists of fate, both women find love the arranged way.

Filmed in 17 days on a meager budget, Arranged comes across as a combination of clever Nora Ephron script and United Nations press release. The politically correct dialogue occasionally seems forced and a good man a little too easy to find. But thanks to the acting and the overall message, it is easy to bite your tongue while both women meet men, marry and produce babies at the same time.

Eventually Rochel has enough of principal Jacoby and vehemently defends her choice of attire and decision to follow her community's prescribed path. Her outburst is observed and applauded by her student Eddie, a nearly blind Puerto Rican fourth-grader. With weak vision but wisdom beyond his years, Eddie serves as the omnipresent eyes of the movie, like Gatsby's Dr. T.J. Eckelburg, observing as the women's worlds come together.

In the last scene Rochel and Nasira sit on a park bench with their babies in strollers—Rochel now covering her hair with a snood—and their young beautiful faces beam as they smile at their first children. Some viewers may feel frustrated that the women don't rebel more—Nasira never questions that an arranged marriage will work for her and Rochel goes back to the Orthodox version of speed dating after 10 minutes in the secular dating world—but with the divorce rate where it is, a little help from those who know you best may not be unwise.

Their real but quiet defiance is their friendship, which raises eyebrows in school and among their families, and causes Rochel's mother to force Nasira out of the family home because she worries her presence will hurt her daughter's prospects. Rochel and Nasira are impervious to such alarm. For them, their friendship provides support and security. Not only do they never question it, they wear it like a badge of courage.

—Karin Tanabe