Showtimes
Palm Springs Cultural Center 2/3
By Robert St. Martin
Palm Springs, CA (The Hollywood Times) 1/1/26 – A charming film from Lebanon at this year’s Palm Spring International Film Festival is Cyril Aris’ A Sad and Beautiful World. Set against decades of conflict in Lebanon, A Sad and Beautiful World follows Nino and Yasmina, childhood acquaintances whose paths continue to cross as they fall in love as magnetic as it is fragile. This romantic comedy is sincere and vibrant, thanks to the two dazzling performances by the lead actors: Mounia Akl and Hassan Akil. As they face an impossible choice between love and survival, they must decide if they want to build a family and chart a path to happiness in Lebanon, despite the tragedies ravaging the country. The first of three screenings at the Palm Spring International Film Festival happens on Saturday, January 3, at 1:45 at the Mary Pickford Theatre. See below for the other screenings and tickets.
It undoubtedly took a lot of courage to make a romantic comedy against the backdrop of the decline of a country, Lebanon, without succumbing to the despair that grips a segment of the population. Yet it is precisely this opposition, between those who plan to leave (and perhaps return when the situation improves) and those who intend to stay and live despite everything, between the woman who doesn’t want to bring a child into this world and the man who still sees a happy future possible, that runs through this film from beginning to end.
Nino, a restaurant owner, drives his car into the storefront of the offices of Yasmina’s parents. Yasmina is a trade consultant for the Lebanese government. When her mother wants to press charges, he offers to invite them to his restaurant to pay off part of her debt. Yasmina, amused by Nino’s behavior, realizes from a photo on the wall that he is none other than a former schoolmate she lost touch with long ago. Nino and Yasmina then begin dating and eventually fall in love.
The film is parsed between three time periods: The time when Nino and Yasmina met, the past when the two principals were children, and the present time in their lives. Early on the film establishes the context that already existed at the time of the two characters’ birth (bombings, a last railway line disappearing… like a dead end). Cyril Aris then projects us to time years later, reconnecting his two characters through a dinner during which the uncompromising cook of Nino’s restaurant does little to improve relations between him and the victims of his driving his car into their shop. Instead of financial arrangements, he finds here a pretext to woo the woman he was once friends with as a child.
Using brief flashbacks that illuminate their childhood, the director quickly contrasts the attitudes of the two protagonists, whose gazes are filled with tenderness and complicity. And the charm quickly takes hold, in terms of romantic comedy, blending worldly pleasures (cooking, dancing…), almost adolescent romanticism, and the fading prospect of a relationship.
Hasan Akil excels in the role of the lovesick, pleasure-seeking lover with a Calimero-like gaze. Mounia Akl, for her part, embodies with fervor the wilder of the two, independent and elusive at the same time. Cyril Aris effortlessly brings to life this irresistible attraction between the two, before launching into a darker final section, underscored by a few symbolic elements (the abandoned, decrepit train; the island where supposedly Nino’s parents went), but intelligently questioning the capacity to give birth in a context oscillating between conflict and crisis.
A true declaration of love for Beirut and Lebanon, a denunciation of political failings, A Sad and Beautiful World captivates with its reassuring tone and the irresistible charm of its two leads. Set against the vibrant yet strained backdrop of a bustling cityscape, the often-blurred demarcations between its different time periods are sharply drawn by the state of Nino’s once-thriving restaurant, a microcosm of the nation’s struggles as it has trouble keeping afloat. The times are so persistently tough that even the amicable resolution of a sudden accident, is insight on survival and a scratch your back barter system.
In their interactions, the film explores its central theme: how shared events are either fortified by memory or eroded by the weight of silence and time. Written by Aris and Bane Fakih, the narrative is deeply embedded in the specific reality of a Lebanon (a country that runs on generators), when the lights go out, or a missile shrapnel explodes they become powerful metaphors for a nation’s precarious state. As the film emphatically suggests, the people of Beirut are constantly faced with a choice: to find the energy to restart, or to finally give up. In retrospect, this explains the mass exodus where millions of Lebanese now live outside the country’s borders, sustaining themselves on the wishful thinking that has become part of the national DNA: “When things get better, we’ll go back to Beirut.”
As Nino and Yasmina face an impossible choice between love and survival, they must decide if they want to build a family and chart a path to happiness in Lebanon: Like many Lebanese people, they must choose between staying in Lebanon or emigrating to another country in Europe. Like its title suggests, A Sad and Beautiful World is exactly that: a film of contrasts. There’s so much tenderness in the way Nino and Yasmina try to build a life together, and yet there’s tragedy lurking in every corner, a reminder that survival often overshadows happiness. Although the movie is a bit uneven, it does leave a mark because it understands something essential about love: It doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Sometimes the most powerful romances are the ones shaped by impossible circumstances.
Cyril Aris is a Lebanese director, screenwriter, and member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His feature documentary Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano (2023) has received critical acclaim. A Sad and Beautiful World premiered at the Venice Film Festival and had its U.S. premiere in November 2025 at the Asian World Film Festival in Los Angeles, where it received the Audience Award. The film will have three screenings at the Palm Springs International Film Festival: SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 2026, at 1:45 PM, at the Mary Pickford 10; TUESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2026, at 5:00 PM at the Palm Springs Cultural Center 2/3; and SATURDAY, JANUARY 10, 2026, at11:00 AM at the Palm Springs Cultural Center 2/3. For tickets, go to: https://www.psfilmfest.org/film-festival-2026/film-finder/a-sad-and-beautiful-world.
