Life, marked by two-hour border checkpoints in an occupied land, has grown harsh in the West Bank for Palestinian single mother Muna (Nisreen Faour) and her teenaged son Fadi (Melkar Muallem). When they're allowed the chance to relocate to a town near Chicago, where relatives live, they take it. The result is "Amreeka," Arab-American writer-director Cherien Dabis' disarming, lightly comic story of cultural dislocation, full of the sort of detail and observational wisdom that announces the arrival of a most promising talent.

Some of the on-screen talent may be familiar, notably Hiam Abbass as Muna's sister (the Palestinian actress co-starred with Richard Jenkins in "The Visitor"). The film is a distinct period piece, a slice of uneasy recent history: Set in 2002, just after the American invasion of Iraq, "Amreeka" sometimes overpacks its narrative with clashes between the suspicious and/or venal high school students confronting Fadi. (An Illinois policeman excuses one group of Anglo kids' vicious behavior with a simple, "I don't have to tell you what's going on in the world.")

In the meantime Muni, his mother, tells her extended family she has found work in a bank; in reality, she's serving sliders and nails at a White Castle. Despite some of the story contrivances, though, the film (shot mostly in Winnipeg) is both winning and truthful. Dabis gives each of her major characters the necessary breathing room to capture our interest, even when their shiny new homeland threatens to suffocate.