When her mother is admitted into hospital for an operation in Tel Aviv, Dorona and her two brothers rush to b
e by her side. Dealing with their mother’s condition temporarily puts aside the three siblings angst with their own unhappy lives. Dorona wants out of her marriage to Ricki her patient saint of a husband after her latest in a long line of miscarriages : Netanel her oldest brother has become very pious since marrying his Orthodox American wife , and Shai who is openly bisexual is dealing wth the fact that his son is in Hungary with his mother and also Netanel’s disapproval of his lifestyle.
When their mother unexpectedly dies the shock of the sibling’s loss is compounded by the surprise discovery that the mother’s ex husband that helped parent them, is not in fact their father after all. They have never forgiven him for abandoning their mother for a much younger woman, and now because his new wife has been unsuccessful in conceiving a child, he has just found out that he is totally infertile so could never have fathered them. The only person who may know of their biological father’s real identity and possibly his whereabouts is their Aunt in Paris, so they set off in search of her and the truth.
Dorona’s husband Ricki tags along too which turns out to be quite an advantage as his calm demeanor and logic often saves the day when the siblings anger manifests itself all too frequently. Their father turns up too as he would like some answers also, but they are determined to shut him out and not allow him to be part of it.
The quest turns about much more to be about the siblings looking for answers for their own lives, and they are spurred on to overcome all the setbacks they encounter in the search in the hope that finding their father may somehow miraculously ‘complete’ them.
The beauty of this charming and intriguing Israeli dramedy from writer/director Shemi Zarhin is that it doesn’t tie up all the story strands in the end, and leaves ample room for one’s own imagination to decide what really happened, which all makes perfect sense. If however you are one of those who needs all the answers, then you may just want to skip this.
