Amreeka is a sweet-natured film about the experiences of a Palestinian woman and her teenage son when they emigrate to Illinois.

The film is set in 2003, at the beginning of the invasion of Iraq, so the Arab experience in America is fraught with extra tension. What distinguishes Amreeka -- the Arab word for America -- is a superb cast and the director's ability to tell her tale with unexpected humour.

Muna (Nisreen Faour) is the single mother of a teenaged boy. The movie opens with her life in the West Bank, with its tension from Israeli checkpoints every day and the personal humiliation of seeing her ex-husband with his lovely young girlfriend. The camera takes care to show the depressing urban landscape where Muna and her son live.

When her chance comes to live in the United States, Muna decides to leave Ramallah and go. The camera then shows a similarly depressing landscape outside Chicago, all snow and bleak suburban houses. Muna and her son Fadi (Melkar Muallem) will be living with Muna's sister.

That sister (Hiam Abbass) has been in America for 15 years and is still very homesick. Muna does her best to jump into life in Illinois, trying and failing to get a job in a bank. Despite her education and her work experience, she ends up behind the counter, flipping burgers in a White Castle.

Her son Fadi becomes a junior in high school, even though his education is far superior to even the senior students there. He's in a class with his cousin (Alia Shawkat, Whip It), from whom he learns the finer points of teen life. From smoking a joint to disrespecting his mother, Fadi is a quick study.

Amreeka is not without drama. Muna's brother in law ( Yussuf Abu-Warda) is a successful doctor whose patients have begun leaving in droves because of the invasion of Iraq. Their bias makes no sense, but neither does the hostility of the other kids at school toward Fadi -- they call him Osama and accuse him of being a terrorist. American xenophobia is central to the storytelling; still, filmmaker Cherien Dabis handles the issues with grace and empathy.

And, as immigrant stories go, it doesn't hurt that in the role of Muna, Nisreen Faour radiates hope and humour.

A brief discussion of the invention of chess is the single, subtle nod to the older of the two involved cultures.

In some ways, Amreeka reflects Dabis' own experience. The filmmaker is a Palestinian who grew up in Jordan and in Ohio after her parents emigrated. She was on the receiving end of American suspicion and fear during the first Iraq war.

Amreeka is an award-winning film that first played in late September during the Toronto Palestine Film Festival. It's in English and Arabic, with subtitles.

(This film is rated 14-A)

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