Critic Reviews

Aris manages to infuse both perspectives, Nino’s and Yasmina’s, into the film, which is funny, even joyous, without discounting the darkness that lives just outside (and sometimes inside) the walls of its characters’ homes.

The result is an appealing, soulful romance with a considerable emotional tug.

A Sad and Beautiful World is an original, deliberately artificial mashup of romantic fantasy and social political drama, signified by the contrasting adjectives of the title.

Nino and Yasmina embark on a life together in spite of the obstacles the sad world puts in front of them...You root for them, and for the idea that love can make the world a little less sad and a little more beautiful.

For his evocative and wistful romance to yield its intended effect, writer-director Cyril Aris’ biggest ask of the viewer is to surrender to the serendipitous nature of the couple’s connection — a request that is later supported with a concept that expands the film’s magical realist vein. Contrived by design, the premise eventually earns enough goodwill for one to play along.

War-torn romances are nothing new, but in Mr. Aris’s story it’s not the shattered buildings that constitute the real wreckage.

Despite the prescriptive nature of its framing, however, A Sad and Beautiful World ultimately wrestles with a question that neither of its characters will ever have the luxury of answering for themselves: Is it easier to love without hope, or to hope without love? Nino and Yasmina have always been bound together by that uncertainty, and the open-ended final moments of this movie leave us desperate to believe that they always will be.

A Sad and Beautiful World captures the tension between the desperate need to leave and the eternal longing to return but the playtime that Akil and Akl do get together plays more like a highlight real than dramatically compounding.