What a beautiful movie!

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

A fine adventure for kids from Israel. A boy, about twelve years old, and the son of a recently fallen Israeli soldier, wins a judo contest. However, the boy he has beaten in the final, is the school bully, and soon his gang will beat him up. He redeems himself later that day when he joins a lovely girl called Alicia, a Russian immigrant, her older brother Lev (who suffers from down syndrome) and another bespectacled kid, in rescuing a young couple who has been left dying in a lake after crashing with their truck. This is fine stuff for older kids, though its unthinking endorsement of the militarism of Israeli society is a bit unsettling.