By Sasha Kopas

Too Sweet to Stick

“Caramel,” Nadine Labaki’s directorial debut, is a mildly charming and visually engaging maiden effort. Beautiful women laugh, cry and lust with seemingly reckless abandon as they confront sexual politics and do each other’s hair. However, Labaki, also the screenwriter and star, indulges her own sweet-tooth to the detriment of the film.

Sugaring

As the opening credits roll, the screen is filled with gooey lumps of caramel being twisted, coiled onto pink tongues and dragged across lusciously full lips. This is caramel to be used for sugaring, a grooming process in which excess body hair is ripped out by the root. Like love, this stuff can sweeten your day or cause excruciating pain in intimate places.

Salon Clubhouse

Sugaring is the specialty of Layal (Labaki), who runs a ramshackle beauty salon in Beirut. A social center as much as a place of business, it is essentially the clubhouse for her tight-knit group of girlfriends.

These include her co-workers, Nisrine (,Yasmine Al Masri), an anxious bride-to-be and Rima (Joanna Moukarzel) , a pixie-like, closet lesbian. Jamale (Gisèle Aouad), an aging actress and frequent customer, is also part of their clique. Aunt Rose (Siham Haddad), an elderly tailor who cares for her crazy, older sister, hovers on the outskirts.

Their day-to-day dramas are the focus of the film.

Nisrine is Muslim and worried about her wedding night, while the Christian Layal is sleeping with a married man. Rima puts all her passion into washing the hair of a woman she adores, and Jamale competes with women half her age in the blood-sport of acting.

Hollow Candy Shell

Although no one character is cloying, their moments of ensemble turbulence conjure up a Nescafe commercial. When Layal is let-down by her lover, the gang drops in for an impromptu slumber party. They soothe her as she cries until one bursts out sobbing, “you’re not the only one living a lie.” The scenes that should be the most intimate are oddly uncomfortable and far too many show the women alternating between laughing and weeping. They lack a deep, emotional core, a chocolate center if you will, and the result is a sort of hollow, candy shell.

Impressive Performances

Aside from the saccharine bonding scenes, the chemistry among the ladies is impressive. With the exception of Labaki, most of the cast are amateurs but deliver subtle, natural performances.

Labaki sparkles onscreen and it is fun to watch her tool around the city in her beat-up car, sweaty and undone a la Brigitte Bardot. However, she is more than an Amazonian beauty with bedroom eyes and va-va-voom hips. Her performance is controlled and penetrating, particularly as she interacts with her lover’s wife.

Sweet, not Satisfying

The ending saves the film from comparison with other “feel-good-chick-flicks” mostly due to its ambiguity; Labaki leaves her characters’ stories trailing like ribbons in the dust.

The film, like its creator, is not quite ripe but oozing potential.