Containing a backdrop quilted with uneasy depictions of emotional scarring and stalker psychology, “White on Rice” is perhaps the most lightweight, instinctive, and jubilant indie comedy I’ve seen this year. Co-writer/director Dave Boyle devises a brisk play of ridiculousness, though plunging the action into charismatic Japanese-American cultural aesthetics, providing the film an engrossing identity to go along with its flavorful laughs and skillful performances.
I appreciated “Amreeka” for its heartfelt approach, which unfortunately also runs the picture into a few walls. An immigrant tale placed carefully in the long shadow of 9/11, Cherien Dabis’s debut feature has earnest energy to spare, along with a marvelous evocation of itchy Arabic behaviors marooned in a profoundly paranoid America. It’s a fine film with much on its mind, and while suffering from occasional missteps, it holds together as a terrific expression of worry and relocation, inspecting the less illuminated side of the American Dream.
BRIAN ORNDORF 