by MATTHEW HAYS

The past decade has seen a growing cycle of feel-good assimilation films, movies in which children of immigrants to the West must confront their parents’ old-school traditions and find some warm, fuzzy compromise. I’m thinking My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Mambo Italiano, Bend It Like Beckham and Touch of Pink, among others. Final moments are always rosy, with new and old worlds reaching some kind of wish-fulfilling détente.

It feels somewhat ironic to report that writer-director Fatih Akin’s Head-On is refreshing, in that it takes the second-generation immigrant-community film back to the bad old days of the Frears-Kureishi collaborations of the ’80s (My Beautiful Laundrette and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid).

Set in Berlin, the film has two second-generation Turkish immigrants meet up in a psych ward. Cahit (Birol Ünel) is a sad drunk and cocaine abuser, tormented by memories of his late wife. Sibel (Sibel Kekilli) is the emotionally-bruised daughter of strict Turkish immigrant parents. Cahit has driven his car, foot to the floor, into a brick wall; Sibel has been similarly suicidal, slashing her wrists to escape her suffocating family.

Sibel hatches a loony grand scheme: the two should marry, effectively pleasing her family (hey, he’s a Turk) and allowing her to move out of the house. This would be a marriage of convenience, she assures, and they would be roommates, nothing more. Then they could continue to carouse and sleep their way through Berlin, free of nonsensical family obligation.

Naturally, things don’t proceed quite as planned, with emotional pratfalls complicating the addled pair’s marriage contract. That much is predictable. But the beauty of Akin’s film is that that is the only predictable thing here; the rest of Head-On is distinctive, riveting and superbly rendered, from the script to the acting. This is a spoiler-free review—I’m not going to ruin the twists involved—but rest assured, Head-On is well worth a night out at the cinema.

Head-On opens at Cinéma du Parc Friday, July 8

>> Movie Listings