Alex and Eve

image for Alex and Eve

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Not recommended under 15; parental guidacne to 15 (coarse language and sexual references)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Alex and Eve
  • a review of Alex and Eve completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 3 November 2015.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 15 Not recommended due to coarse language and sexual references.
Children aged 15 Parental guidance recommended due to coarse language and sexual references.
Children aged 16 and over OK for this age group

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Alex and Eve
Classification: M
Consumer advice lines: Mature themes, coarse language and sexual references
Length: 87 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Alex (Richard Brancatisano) is a maths teacher at a high school in Sydney. He lives with his immigrant parents George (Tony Nikolakopoulos) and Chloe (Zoe Carides) who are devoutly Greek orthodox. Alex is a confirmed bachelor until one night when he is set up on a blind date with Eve (Andrea Demetriades) by his best mate Paul (Ryan O’Kane). Paul’s girlfriend Clare (Millie Samuels) works with Eve at a law firm where Eve is a lawyer.

Alex and Eve are instantly attracted to each other but there is a huge obstacle to overcome, as Eve is a Lebanese Muslim. Eve tries talking to her parents Bassam (Simon Elrahi) and Salwa (Helen Chebatte) about Alex but find they are both opposed to such a relationship. They have already promised Eve to a nice Muslim boy Mohomad (Hazem Shammas) and are determined that this match will go ahead. Alex and Eve have different ideas however, but try as they might they cannot persuade either set of parents.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Religious intolerance; cultural divide; multiculturalism

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie including:

  • Some occasional slapping
  • A lot of verbal anger and shouting by Salwa at Eve and George at Alex as well as loud arguing between Salwa and George. George and Salwa swear at each other in their own languages.
  • Alex hits a gym instructor with a ball.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • The level of family arguments and shouting might scare children in this age group.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

Children in this age group may also be disturbed by the family arguments and when Eve’s brother Shadi, who is a scary looking character, threatens to kill Alex on a few occasions.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

  • Children in this age group could also be disturbed by the above-mentioned scenes.
  • Chloe collapses when she hears that Eve is a Lebanese Muslim and that Alex and Eve are planning on moving in together.

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Younger viewers in this age group may be disturbed by the attitudes to women and girls seen. Examples include:

  • Salwa tells Eve that she will ‘kill’ her if she continues to go out with Alex and that she will bring shame on the family.
  • A male student of Alex breaks up with his Australian girlfriend and says that all Aussie girls drink, smoke and are sluts.

Product placement

Nothing of concern

Sexual references

There are quite a lot of sexual references in this movie, including:

  • Alex’s students think he’s gay because he doesn’t have a girlfriend.
  • One of Alex’s male students tells him he should go to a brothel where he can get a girl for $180.
  • A character says about a man that his ‘dick’s as big as his ego’.
  • Salwa accuses Eve of having sex with Alex – a non-Muslim boy.
  • Shadi asks ‘who’s been popping my sister?’
  • George comes into the lounge and sees Alex leaning over Eve on the sofa and says it looks as if they were having sex.
  • George says that Australian girls are ‘easy’.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • Paul and Clare are often seen kissing passionately.
  • Clare opens her dressing gown (shown from behind) and says to Paul ‘if you want to see these again you know what to do).
  • Paul and Clare are shown in bed together. Clare is in her underwear. He’s reading the Kama Sutra and she asks him if they are just ‘fuck buddies’.
  • Men at a gym are shown taking showers – they are seen nude from the back.
  • Alex and Eve kiss passionately and undress each other. Sex is implied but not shown. They fall asleep in each other’s arms.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • Drinking at several events, bars, restaurants and at home.

Coarse language

There is coarse language in this movie, including:

  • fuck/fucking
  • bullshit
  • Oh God
  • holy shit
  • Jesus
  • arsehole
  • shit
  • bloody
  • name-calling such as wanker, slut, loser, dirty Greek.

In a nutshell

Alex and Eve is a romantic comedy about a couple from different cultures and religions who are forbidden by their parents to see each other, causing much emotion and some laughs. It is a current and sensitive topic, and very well portrayed but the coarse language and sexual references in the movie make it more suited to a mature audience. It is therefore not recommended for viewers under 15.

The main messages from this movie are that love can overcome all obstacles and that it’s better to find what different cultures have in common rather that what separates us.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • tolerance
  • multiculturalism
  • the importance of family

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Harbouring hatred only brings discord and unhappiness.
  • Prejudices need to be addressed and worked through in order to live peacefully in a muticultural society.