A Palestinian youth (Mahmud Shalaby) discovers a bottle on the shore of Gaza Beach. Inside is a note from a French teen (Agathe Bonitzer) living in Jerusalem. who questions how people can justify blowing up Israeli cafés; an e-mail address is included, so the Arabic kid replies. Soon, the two are trading caustic barbs over the Internet, a hostile dialogue that eventually turns into budding Francophilia for him and a deep, meaningful friendship for them both. Thankfully, filmmaker Thierry Binisti doesn’t overplay the political didacticism or the star-crossed pen-pal aspects. The film’s notion that a little understanding and a lot of e-mailing would basically solve the Middle East crisis, however, is as reductive as it is utopian.
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