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Ticket to Jerusalem is a serviceable drama about Palestinian life under occupation, but it too often verges on imitative fallacy, as its dogged protagonist's trial becomes the audience's. The basic premise is established fairly quickly. Jabir (Gassan Abbas), a bare-bones independent film exhibitor, battles both Israeli-enforced limitations on Palestinian movement, and his wife Sana's (Areen Omari) lack of understanding of his passion for showing films as he arranges a potentially dangerous screening for a group of Palestinian schoolchildren within Jerusalem. The performances are uneven, though George Ibrahim (of Elias Suleiman's far more compelling Divine Intervention) stands out among the supporting players. The action is redundant, as Jabir struggles to arrive at one screening after another, repeatedly encounters technical problems, and continually argues and then reconciles with the emotionally needy Sana. Neither the characterizations nor the visuals are strong enough to make much of an impression, so the only thing that really registers, aside from an odd dichotomy in the way women are portrayed as strong-willed and yet annoyingly insecure, is writer-director Rashid Masharawi's political point, which is obvious enough that at 85 minutes, it feels belabored. Other films, including the excellent documentaries The Inner Tour and Promises, deal with some of the same issues as Ticket to Jerusalem, but address their complexity more effectively.