the funny and tender tribulations of a Palestinian in Texas

NETFLIX – ON DEMAND – SERIES

Although Mohammed (“Mo”) Najjar has lived for almost thirty years in the United States, more precisely in Houston (Texas), he and his family are still waiting for the authorities to deign to grant them the visa that will allow them to feel in their place. in this country which, since September 11, does not really know what to do with its Arab immigrants.

In the meantime, Mo lives on expedients and his loose tongue. After being fired from a smartphone store for lack of a work permit, he improvises as a seller of fake watches that have fallen off the truck, an olive picker, a bouncer-animator in a strip club… His illegal status does not never allows him to last very long, but the big guy with teddy bear cheeks never departs from a sense of humor that pulls him out of almost any situation.

Largely autobiographical

His face reminds you of something? Mohammed Amer actually played a small role in the excellent series Ramy (on StarzPlay), created in 2019 by Ramy Youssef. It is also in collaboration with him that Amer developed MB for Netflix. More than a spin-off of its East Coast big sister, MB is a largely autobiographical variation on the theme of the Muslim in America, carried by the half-tender half-salacious jokes of the stand-up, whose talent can be discovered in the show The Vagabond, also available on Netflix.

Resolutely political, this first season of MB has as its red thread the endless quest for the visa that would allow the Najjar to earn a living legally and, above all, to put a painful past at bay. Born in Palestine, Mo fled his homeland for Iraq, until his family was once again forced into exile, this time to the United States. The father, long gone, will retain a melancholy that gives MB some of his most touching flashbacks. Also touching are the scenes showing Mo’s mother, a kindly traditionalist, curing her spleen by making olive oil which she distributes around her like Xanax pills.

And then there are those scenes of Muslim life that we rarely see on screen: the prayer of Mo, his brother and his sister at their father’s grave, a group of friends serenading a future groom, Mo and his Mexican fiancée conversing in Spanish, this piece of bread that Mo dips in oil and zaatar to console himself after a bad day. After two decades of pissed off bearded terrorists, that feels good.

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