“Thank You For Banking With Us!” offers a rich, uplifting portrait of resistance to patriarchal oppression

The Palestinian dramedy by filmmaker and academic Laila Abbas premieres locally at the Wisconsin Film Festival on April 5 and 7.

At once an intimate family drama, a lighthearted black comedy, and a low-key heist film, Laila Abbas’ assured debut feature Thank You For Banking With Us! (2024) offers audiences a Palestinian narrative beyond war, occupation, and genocide. As part of the 2025 Wisconsin Film Festival, the film premieres in Madison at UW Music Hall on Saturday, April 5, at 11 a.m. and at Flix Brewhouse Cinema 2 on Monday, April 7 at 3 p.m. At the time of this article’s publication, general tickets are available for the April 5 screening, but only “rush” tickets may be available in person at the door for April 7.

Set in Ramallah, the administrative capital of the West Bank, the story follows the vaguely Kafkaesque escapades of two estranged sisters who must set aside their differences to circumvent Islamic inheritance laws and procure the tidy sum left to them by their late father. Mariam (Clara Khoury), a dissatisfied, world-weary homemaker with two young sons, depends on her unfaithful husband for money, while her unmarried, freewheeling sister, Noura (Yasmine Al Massri), works as a beautician and still lives in their father’s house.

Although they are like chalk and cheese, Mariam and Noura decide to join forces and devise an elaborate scheme to withdraw his life savings before their brother—who relocated to the United States long ago and is legally entitled to half of the inheritance—finds out about their father’s death. In a race against time, the bickering sisters encounter one obstacle after another as they seek assistance from the various men in their lives, who wield power over them in the interest of upholding tradition. 

Abbas’ savvy, tightly scripted tale of two ordinary women desperately trying to buck the system has its fair share of comic moments and biting one-liners, which highlight the complications and absurdities of navigating social structures. For instance, when Mariam informs her brother that she wants to divorce her husband because she is unhappy, he replies, “What’s with women’s obsession with happiness nowadays? My wife is not happy either.” Setting the movie in Palestine adds another layer of commentary. “Should I wait for Palestine to be free to get a divorce?” Mariam asks after her uncle says the country is going through rough times. While Israel’s occupation of Palestine remains on the periphery of the plot, Abbas focuses on humanizing the struggles of modern Muslim women under outdated laws. 

With its vividly three-dimensional characters, delicate tonal balance, and wry sense of humor, Abbas’ feature amounts to an accessible and subtly provocative critique of patriarchal rigidity. Thank You For Banking With Us! presents a gently absurdist take on contemporary social mores and gender inequalities in Palestine, allowing viewers to take a rare glimpse into the vast spectrum of Palestinian life.

“I wanted to tell a story about us,” the writer-director told The New Arab in a 2024 interview. “In most Palestinian films, it’s us versus them [Israelis], and I felt that we need a space to tell our own stories to show the complexity of our lives.”

Abbas wrote and shot Thank You For Banking With Us! over a period of six years, long before the October 7, 2023 attacks and Israel’s relentless bombardment in Gaza. In light of the increasingly bleak situation in the region, a comedy about Islamic inheritance laws might not feel especially timely or relevant to some viewers. Much has changed since Abbas shot the film in the summer of 2023, and the director herself has acknowledged this dichotomy between the themes of Thank You For Banking With Us! and the present genocide.

“I am presenting a film I find funny at festivals across the world and it’s very difficult because I feel that I need to be talking about what is happening in the world right now,” Abbas told Variety in October of last year. Nevertheless, authentic Palestinian stories are perhaps more vital than ever.

Just last week, Hamdan Ballal, the Oscar-winning Palestinian co-director of No Other Land (2024), was reportedly attacked by Jewish settlers and then detained by the Israeli military. Ballal was released the following day after being kept blindfolded for more than 20 hours under a blasting air conditioner and beaten by soldiers. Basel Adra, another of the film’s co-directors and a prominent Palestinian activist, said there’s been a marked increase in attacks by settlers and Israeli forces since No Other Land won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature on March 2.

At a time when Palestinian artists are being targeted and suppressed for their work and viewpoints, all voices from Palestine have political resonance. While Thank You For Banking With Us! does not specifically address Israel’s systematic destruction of the occupied West Bank like No Other Land, Abbas’ film deserves recognition and its inclusion in the Wisconsin Film Festival is meaningful.

Thank You For Banking With Us! seamlessly interweaves familial dynamics, gender politics, and technological advancement to create an elegant, richly textured, and uplifting portrait of sisterly resistance to patriarchal oppression, while suggesting that archaic problems sometimes require modern solutions. For anyone feeling low in spirits due to the dismal state of our world, going to see this film could actually pay off. As Abbas puts it, “Finding the irony in everything happening around you can be therapeutic… otherwise, you would go crazy if you keep contemplating how grim life is.”