“Captain Abu Raed’’ was Jordan’s best foreign film entry for this year’s Academy Awards. Surprisingly it didn’t get nominated. Writer-director Amin Matalqa’s debut affirms life, plucks heartstrings, and knows no shame.
It’s not enough that Abu Raed should be wise, noble, and generous (he speaks French, too). When he gets home and pours himself a glass of tea, he also pours one for his deceased wife. Between its over-carpentered plot and Austin Wintory’s appalling score, “Captain Abu Raed’’ could be a commercial for manipulativeness.
Two things recommend the movie. Burly and unhurried, Sawalha gives a fine, understated performance. If “Captain Abu Raed’’ feels like a contemporary Arab version of a ’50s problem drama, Sawalha comes across as an exalted Lee J. Cobb. His companionability goes a long way to overcome the movie’s relentless uplift.
The other virtue is its setting. Amman is virgin cinematic territory, and the film is most involving at its interstices, when it simply lets us take in the surroundings. Abu Raed rides the airport bus. He gets a lift in the Mercedes of his new acquaintance, a female airline captain named Nour (Tina Fey look-alike Rana Sultan). He gazes out over the city from the roof of his suspiciously spacious apartment. It’s all quite humdrum - except that we get to experience one of the rarest yet most basic of moviegoing pleasures: encountering a world new to the screen.
Mark Feeney can be reached at mfeeney@globe.com.
