Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Suman Roberson It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

dt1908 Two thousand kilometers from Marrakesh of Morocco to Paris France but two different worlds that will not enable communication and bridging the gap. Sad and though Fred holds some hope, the spectator can not share this hope. Seems authentic, very good performance of the actors, I agree with the person that said that some of the figures do not seem to be actors but act themselves (the house maids). Whatever seems at the beginning to be a perversion, understood later as a desperate struggle for emotional survival and reason for existence. In this sense the swimming pool is a good metaphor. I find this film to be a refined, touchy, moving, beautiful film. One of a kind.

gargih This film is about language. The way language operates between two people who don't understand the same language but still have the same wants, but are never able to communicate.There are people who translate for both of them, and all the translations are distorted by cultural values or translator's own intentions. I loved the performance of 'Raja', the actress is extremely beautiful. It was very intimately able to communicate the details of lives of a street child, who grew into a street-girl and ended up with a bad and loveless man who only wants to exploit her.It was not about sex, money, or other similar things, but it was how these mere ideas can ruin a love affair.In all it entertained me and broke my heart. It was such a pleasure.

Nicholas Price I knew that I had seen the main actor in another movie, but was not able to place it until I looked at his resume on IMDb - Pascal Greggory - and the movie - Gabrielle. Gabrielle was a typical French affair - drawn out, painfully introspective where you wanted the characters to do something, rather than pontificate in a tedious fashion. This did not bode well for a film with the same actor. He was egotistical, arrogant and abused his position of wealth. His actions were confusing, why did he want Youseff and Raja to marry to escape the policeman from Casablanca, but yet still wanted her to sleep with him. The explanation of converting the house to a hotel - with Youseff and Raja as running it - seemed absurd. I could not understand his actions and despised the character. He was juvenile and destructive in his actions and the story offered little to no character development. I want to clarify my above comment about French cinema because there are many excellent French films, e.g. La Haine, Amelie, City of Lost Children, Delicatessen, A Self-Made Hero, etc.

kurtz-1 I was really in a mood to see a good foreign film ..having recently seen Distant and The Return and having missed Kitchen Stories and Crimson Gold thta were no longer playing at any NYC theaters. So I read a couple of reviews that were generally favorable to this film and decided to see Raja. The fact that I have been to Morocco and Marrakesh specifically also contributed to my interest in this film. While I thought the film had some merit and did give somewhat of a feeling of the plight of the Moroccan underclass I thought that, overall, it was very drawn out and seemed to prolong or unnecessarily stretch out the plot line of the somewhat bizzarre and seemingly impossible relationship between the Frenchman and Raja. I felt that the relationships between his two "servants" who cooked and cleaned and seemed devoted to him was far more believable (my sense was that they were not professional actos which really seemd to work.) His obsession with young girls, in particular Raja , and his boredom with life was clearly manifested yet it was,again in my opinion belabored and took away from the dramatic flow of the film. The ending, in particular, was also somewhat farfetched and seemed to further distract from the main theme of the film