Suleiman’s comic drama on Palestinian roots and identity...

Full Review | Oct 26, 2023

As a Palestinian who makes funny films, Elia Suleiman has his job cut out, but this gentle, observational comedy about our fractious world is on message, and at the same time a pleasure to watch.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 23, 2022

The face of Suleiman's passive observer - dismissive, truculent and weary - is more expressive than in previous films. He may have succeeded in escaping Palestine, but he eventually realizes that he has failed to escape the Palestine inside of him.

Full Review | Jul 3, 2021

It Must Be Heaven is a brave example of the kind of political dissent that occurs outside of revolutions and riots - the quiet, timid kind of struggle that is constantly coursing beneath the surface of any society, occupied or not.

Full Review | Jun 30, 2021

From Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman, this is a witty exploration of the points where culture and religion collide and overlap.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 25, 2021

A memorably surreal shot of tanks rolling down a deserted Parisian street encapsulates the film's rare blend of delightful absurdism and heartbreak.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 24, 2021

An outsider's view of Paris and New York provides entertaining sights in the latest film by the Palestinian director Elia Suleiman...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 22, 2021

Suleiman is a master of slow-burning, cumulative humour; this is the kind of comedy that creeps up on you.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 20, 2021

The deep blackness of his humour melds with the bleakness of the situation, but this feels less focused here.

Full Review | Jun 17, 2021

[Director Elia Suleiman's] latest is at once a charming, deadpan study of national identities, an idiosyncratic love letter to his home and an unvarnished tribute to life's universal absurdities.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 17, 2021

The film proceeds as a deadpan joke book.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 16, 2021

It Must Be Heaven is a finely crafted, unique movie that revels in its absurdity.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 29, 2021

It Must Be Heaven is a gem.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 30, 2020

As comedies go, It Must Be Heaven is not exactly laugh-out-loud, but it's weirdly seductive.

Full Review | Jul 31, 2020

Suleiman questions the notions of home and belonging by employing the universal language of comedy. Thus, the film is neither nation-specific nor culture-specific but acts as a synecdoche to much larger national and cultural problems.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 23, 2020

The mood is superbly sustained by emptying most of the locations of people. It's a soulful sort of comedy, rather than a thigh-slapper, but thoughtful is always better than its alternative.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 6, 2020

Suleiman's whimsical brand of observational comedy has been compared to that of the French master, Jacques Tati, and there are certainly similarities, though the Palestinian is even more minimalistic.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 2, 2020

Suleiman once again plays that silent, impassive and observant individual who now travels the streets of three different nationalities with the sole purpose of showing us the cultural and socio-political similarities they share. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 27, 2020

Vignettes and sight gags abound - cops on drill begin to dance, a bird keeps landing on a keyboard. Some moments are delicately playful, others laugh-out funny, with recurrent awareness of armed, uniformed authority figures.

Full Review | Original Score: A-minus | Jun 11, 2020

Adopting a gentle mode, much of the film is made up of witty visual skits...Thankfully, Elia Suleiman keeps his focus on the funny as he meekly observes the little ironies, absurdities and bewildering acts of human nature that surround him wherever he is.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 11, 2020