Caramel is the sweet sticky substance that is used to remove unwanted hair in writer/director Nadine Labaki’s female buddy comedy set in a Beirut beauty salon. The five generations of ladies that work in the shop that interact include Layale (played by Labaki herself) who loves married man Rabih, Nisrine (Yasmine Al Masri) a soon to be wed non-virgin, Tom boyish Rima (Joanna Moukarzel) and older Jamale (Gisele Aouad).

Labaki’s film is interesting enough and she keeps the action flowing neatly while cross-cutting the action among her five characters.  She shoots in bright colours and the women are as cheerful as the bright dresses they wear throughout the film.

Labaki’s film falls into the same trap of films centred around several characters.  Most of the characters are indistinguishable during the first part of the film and a few (like Rima) are neglected towards the end.  For a film about women, the male roles are again there just for show or badly written. All the men are shown as idiots (the married lover is indecisive; the groom is hot tempered; the older Don Juan only mutters in French) while the female portrayed as superior beings helping each other out and reasoning our problems.

The beauty salon has been the setting of other films like Herbert Ross’ STEEL MAGNOLIAS (dealing with more serious topics covering a period of years) and Tonie Marshall’s VENUS BEAUTE (this one set in France that centres its story over its love repressed owner).  For CARAMEL, like its title implies, the film is sugary coated mainly female fluff.  If that is the sole intention of director Labaki, then all is fine but she could have made her film a better whole by including the real situation and problems of what is going on outside the salon.  The film was completed 9 days before war broke out between Lebanon and Israel.