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A series that explores love and relationships across many situations and different contexts, Love, Life, & Everything in Between has stories that centre on Egypt and other Arab countries, such as Palestine and Morocco. Naturally, we began our binge-watching session with the show’s Egyptian episodes first, as they had outstanding directors like Sandra Nashaat and Khairy Beshara, and also a great cast that featured Ahmed Ezz, Asser Yassin, and Passant Shawky.
And since we’re deeply invested, we decided to share with you what has us so impressed by the show’s Egyptian episodes, O Brother, and National Day of Mourning in Mexico.
The Cinematography And Plot
“O Brother”
The first episode of the series stars Ahmed Ezz, Salah Abdullah, and Passant Shawky, in addition to a new face: A sweet kid who plays Ahmed Ezz’s brother! The episode takes place in Upper Egypt, as we see its marvellous greenery and beautiful scenery of the countryside where life is much simpler and more serene.
Directed by Sandra Nashaat, a director who specialises in capturing the best parts of her actors on screen, O Brother also gave us tons of beautiful cinematography that showcase the exact feelings of warmth rural Egypt brings. In fact, we’ve even felt the sunlight hitting our faces as we engaged with the plot.
Speaking of the plot, we’ll try to write about it without accidentally spoiling anything about the 30-minute episode, after all. So all we’re going to say is that you need to see this episode right away because it’s wholesome and romantic to a tee. Its dialogue certainly helped too—here’s one sentence that made us melt: “If all people celebrate love once a year, my brother and I celebrate it every day”.
via enterprise press
“National Day of Mourning in Mexico”
As the fifth episode of the series, National Day of Mourning in Mexico stars the one and only Asser Yassin and vocalist Nada El Shazly, who show us a relationship between an engaged couple living in a country where love is forbidden. So how are they engaged? Well, we’re not going to spoil it for you but let’s just say that forbidden love comes up a lot in this episode.
Directed by award-winning director Khairy Beshara, an Egyptian cinema icon who changed the realism concept, this episode focuses on the satirical side of things more than the others in the series. Nevertheless, it’s very funny and even wholesome to some extent. We just loved the concept of fighting for love!
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The Relationships in the Episodes
“O Brother”
We thought every single scene with Passant Shawky and Ahmed Ezz together was simply excellent. This couple gave us chills while simultaneously firing their own flames of love—their chemistry was THAT good! Everyone has heard the theory of how loving someone from afar makes you even more attracted to them, but these two characters showed us how that goes in real life.
Both actors knew exactly what to do and how to push their performances to the limit. As a result, every scene felt shockingly real and resonated with us to some extent.
“National Day of Mourning in Mexico”
Although we know how perfect Asser Yassin’s acting is, the man is naturally effortless in this episode! His co-star Nada El Shazly, on the other hand, is, well, not quite that. We’re not criticising her performance or her acting skills, but we did wonder if she is perhaps still testing the waters of the acting world. We also didn’t think the pair had the right amount of chemistry to be playing a couple. There was a lot of thought given to the performances, we’re sure, but sometimes they fell flat.
