The Other Son

What happens when a blood test reveals that an Israeli mother’s son is not her son? Of course, she has to find out if this can be real or not. From the hospital, she eventually learns that her baby was inadvertently switched with a Palastinian baby during a bomb raid on the hospital.

The movie is fun if you like languages, because you get to hear four of them: Hebrew, Arabic, French, and English. The Jewish parents were from France, and often spoke French in their home. So you don’t have to know the Hebrew language to appreciate the film, just be awake enough to read all the subtitles.

There is never any real resolution in the film, how could there be. The 18 year old son is totally confused about his identity. The two families meet, and the two switched sons actually become friends, and are anxious to learn about the other family. The mothers are sympathetic to each other, and the fathers are tough, and nearly come to blow once or twice.

My favorite scene is when Joseph, the boy raised in Israel, sneaked away to visit the Palestinian village. It was slightly tense as he joined them for dinner, but when he broke into an traditional Arabic song he knew, the father got his guitar and started play along, and the tension eased.

IMDB – The Other Son