Critics reviews

Hamoud's narrative instincts can be broad, but she is rarely glib or coy. That she has chosen to focus squarely on internal tensions within the Arab community — the widening cultural and political gulf between the generations — is a mark of her courage, her bravado and her brutal honesty.

This lived-in quality to the performances and milieu serve the film well. That, combined with Hamoud's unhurried, restrained visual style, allows for tension, emotion, and meaning to build together. . . . In Between is a movie not so much about suffering as it is about the grinding reality of just being. These are ordinary women living their ordinary lives, trying to carve out a place for themselves while navigating the expectations of different worlds.

The script and cinematic technique leave room for Hamoud to grow in her second feature, but her clear feminist messaging and subtle departures from expectation already merit respect.

The film can't bridge the distance between the tragic circumstances its characters face and the rigid, somewhat didactic ways they're depicted. While politics and certain kinds of media try to simplify human conflict, art can work against that impulse, making one aware of the specificities of people's experience. In Between does a little bit of both but ultimately chooses order and clarity over ambiguity and implication.

Although from very different backgrounds and with very different goals in life, these three shekels in a fountain gradually bond. That might make this sound soppy, but the script's nuanced treatment of the complex relationships and a feel for the many-faceted, multicultural city in which it's set – a unique urban blend of hedonism and tradition, bound together by hummus and history – redeem any shortcomings.

Despite the culture clash, the trio find common ground in their romantic struggles and feelings of alienation. They grapple with various issues connected to their race and gender, yet Hamoud keeps the tone relatively light, the women's wit and vibrancy accentuated by a brisk pace and Itay Gross's colorful cinematography.

Hamoud's clever, nuanced screenplay offers a critique of traditional, patriarchal Palestinian society, threatened by modernity, feminine power, and the court of public opinion. . . . While the entire cast is aces, the three leads, and the chemistry among them, are especially fine; they poignantly convey the sense of living "in between" and the toll that it takes on their lives.