This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Excellent, smart action film.

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This is the most boring movie I have seen for a while. There isn't much about the founding of the state of Israel if that's what you might expect to see. Instead it's mostly about the author's mother and her depression with only passing comment or two about the state of Arab Jewish relations. The melancholia headaches and death of the mother are the main story. What's so interesting about that? If it had shown her journey from Europe to Jerusalem then maybe you'd understand why she was like that. Instead it shows things that don't lead anywhere. The novelty of watching Natalie Portman speak Yiddish or Hebrew wears off quite quickly. She directed and wrote the screenplay.I would give this one a miss. It's a tale about nothing much. For fans of this writer's work only.

I wanted to like this. I really did. Natalie Portman's directorial debut taking on an epic Amos Oz novel about his early life set against the tale of the birth of the State of Israel should have been wonderful. Instead, it felt like a series of beautiful cinematic vignettes that didn't quite come together to form a cohesive narrative. The dramatic tension is missing. The motivations of Oz and his mother and father are not explained. A couple of political scenes inserted to give some context -- namely the scene with the Arab girl and her brother, and the scene where the UN vote is being read out -- feel clunky and not well linked to the more personal story being told. If I hadn't come into the movie already having a good grasp of the history of mandatory Palestine and Israel's early years, I feel I would have been totally lost, as so much was glossed over or not really explored. Moreover, the most interesting parts to me were those that explored Amos's relationship with his father, but Portman chose to focus the narrative on his enigmatic, struggling mother -- someone you get the sense that the boy himself never really understood. There are a lot of wonderful scenes here, but they don't really go anywhere. Haval.

This is a dark, poetic semi-autobiographical movie based on a book by Amos Oz about a young couple and a child who are living through the turbulent foundation of Israel. The movie focuses on hard realities and not the usual pioneer dreams that were sold to the public and which remain part of the myth of that era. It is not an action movie and the movie is in Hebrew, so if you don't like subtitles or have little interest in the Israel's birth or the novels of Amos Oz, you probably won't find this movie as great as I did. However, even if you rate this movie as average, you will still agree that the details are incredibly accurate to the smallest clump of dirt, shirt threat, and stone wall. This is not a cleaned-up Hollywood version of Israel. Natalie Portman's acting is outstanding, the scenes feel real, and the screenplay maintains the story teller's heartfelt artistic touch.

Greetings again from the darkness. The establishment of the state of Israel and the memoir of Amos Oz are the foundation of the feature film directorial debut of Natalie Portman. First time directors don't typically fight over such source material, but it has always seemed that Ms. Portman was headed towards bigger (and more important) things.She was born in Jerusalem and this story opens in that city during 1945. The narrator is the elderly Amos and the story is told through the eyes of young Amos (a very effective Amir Tessler) … though the focus is on his mother Fania (played by Ms. Portman).The tensions between Jews and Arabs are ever-present, but this is the mostly personal and intimate struggle of Fania and her family. She has survived the atrocities of the Holocaust, though many of her family and friends did not. In fact, her inability to overcome this past and adjust to the new world is what has the biggest impact on young Amos and his scholarly father Arieh (Gilad Kahana). Amos soon figures out that the litmus test for his mother's mood is whether she is telling stories of the old days, or staring blankly into a void.Watching someone fade away and experience death by depression/disappointment/unfulfilled dreams goes so against what we typically see on screen – the emotionally strong and heroic types. Portman's performance makes it believable, but no less difficult to watch … for us or young Amos.The film is well shot and well acted, and much more is conveyed through faces and movement than spoken words … somewhat unusual for the recollections of a writer. The color palette and the silence dominate many scenes, and it seems appropriate given the situation of this family. Expect to see many more projects from director Portman, as she obviously has much to say.