Wendy Ide 

A House in Jerusalem review – child-friendly but languid Israeli-Palestinian history lesson

Muayad Alayan’s drama of a bereaved 12-year-old and her ghostly new friend creates atmosphere but is slow and stilted
  
  

Miley Locke and Sheherazade Farrell in A House in Jerusalem.
Miley Locke and Sheherazade Farrell in A House in Jerusalem. Photograph: Publicity image

After the death of her mother, 12-year-old Rebecca (Miley Locke) and her father (Johnny Harris) move from the UK to Jerusalem to live in a grand house that her father’s family own. But a new start fails to lift Rebecca from the grief that consumes her. Then she meets Rasha (Sheherazade Farrell), a young Palestinian girl who has a mysterious connection to the history of the house in which Rebecca and her father now live. But what promises to be a mournfully atmospheric ghost story soon loses momentum.

Well meaning but laboured in its storytelling, Muayad Alayan’s film attempts a child-friendly approach to Jerusalem’s contested history; however, the languid pacing and stilted acting is likely to lose all but the most committed of younger audience members.

  • In UK and Irish cinemas now

Watch a trailer for a House in Jerusalem.
 

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