Israeli filmmaker Lorraine Levy sets out to challenge the set-in-stone views Israelis and Palestinians have of each other with a story of two boys — one Israeli, one Palestinian — who are accidentally switched at birth. They each grow up in an “enemy” family across the wall that divides Israel from the West Bank.
A blood test for young Joseph’s (Jules Sitruk) entry into the Israeli army reveals the mistake. The families of Joseph and the other boy, Yacine (Mehdi Dehbi), must then figure out how to cope. Questions about whether Joseph is still Jewish arise; Yacine’s brother responds with fury at the notion that he’s grown up with a Jew. The mothers want contact; the fathers, at first, definitely do not.
“The Other Son’’ is played with warmth and conviction by its cast. But it’s also a little pat and toothless, set in an Israel where not even the notorious border crossings seem that difficult. The Palestinian characters are given their say, but it is the Israeli characters who are more complex and interesting, and who get more screen time.
The story unfolds in a way that ultimately feels more like wishful thinking than anything else. Still, scenes such as Joseph bonding with his Arab birth family by singing a song at the dinner table offer an affecting vision of shared humanity.