By Adam Nayman

“The virus can’t tell the difference between Jews and Arabs,” exclaims a character early on in A Gaza Weekend, giving British-Palestinian director Basil Khalil’s wearyingly zany plague comedy a low-calorie humanistic thesis statement. The idea that the Gaza would, by nature of its enclosure, represent a safe harbour in the midst of a deadly international outbreak is not unfunny, and once you accept that Khalil’s approach is intentionally broad and cartoonish, the script works on a contraption-ish level. Forced by circumstance to hide out from Hamas after impulsively fleeing Israel—and, wouldn’t you know it, navigating rocky domestic waters—a British sophisticate (Stephen Mangan) and his Jewish wife (Mouna Hawa) learn humility and how the other half lives. The enlightenment proves mostly contagious across the culturally and ethnically mixed ensemble. In the absence of real storytelling wit or finesse—and at no fault of the actors, who gamely hammer away with the shtick they’re given—the film starts dragging at the midpoint and the ending comes as a dual relief. All’s well that ends well, yes, but also, even better, it’s over.