This rather odd little tale starts with a rather forlorn 13 year old girl arriving at Jerusalem airport from California and feeling abandoned and looking for someone to meet her. That someone is her father Shaul who she has not seen for some time, and has yet to discover that he is a homeless drifter who lifts off his wits, his bizarre inventions, and the kindness of friends.
In the car he has borrowed from Orly his lady friend, father and daughter head North, but their journey is cut short when a bombing raid diverts them a shelter for safety. Shaul discovers Libi is asthmatic so when the coast is clear they head back down south and with the little bit of cash he has borrowed, they get a cheap hotel room in the city. And then when he sees a TV report on the War which features refugees from the North being hosted by families in the suburbs, he plots for he and Libi to pass themselves off as war evacuees in order to get free housing.
Wealthy Gidi and his rather cold fish of a wife Halit slightly reluctantly open their home to Shaul and Libi, but when Gidi leaves for Military Duty, Halit and Shaul get a lot more friendly. And naked too. This doesn’t sit too well with Libi who has her eyes on the 18 yr old son of the house. And then this rather simple story gets unnecessary complicated and starts to aimless meander a little like Shaul himself.
It’s not just the final twists in the plot that confuse, but the whole unspoken reason why Libi’s mother has allowed her daughter to be suddenly in Israel in the first place with the father she hardly knows, and for what everyone seems assume is an indefinite visit. The relationship between the easy-going drifter of a father and his rather uptight and angry child seems to based on them being more like friends, that is until Libi apes Shaul’s behaviour and doesn’t sleep in her own bed one night, and then he plays the angry dad card.
The thing that (almost) forgives the confusing elements is two quite wonderful performances by the lead actors . Elya Inbar as Libi is particularly moving and for one so young, she is exceptionally gifted.
Part drama, part comedy and part good.
★★★★★★
Labels: comedy. drama, Israeli
