People are voting emotionally.

Blistering performances.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Migdal Ha-Emek is one of those towns that, if you have any great ambitions, you move away from. In this movie we meet a high-school girl who wants to be an actress and travels from Migdal Ha-Emek to the big city for an audition. But that's a subplot. Mostly we have a newly arrived classmate who comes from a cultured background, reads books and so on, but finds no one similar to be his companion. The alpha male of the class is a troubled kid from a broken home, and the question is which of the two boys will more greatly influence the other. They tell me the Israeli schoolrooms are pretty chaotic, with the teachers suffering a lot of backtalk. I didn't go to school in Israel, so I'm not sure how exaggerated the undisciplined classroom atmosphere is, but I'm sure it reflects a grain of truth. The young actors are believable, the older actors include a couple of Israel's best, and the story holds attention although it's not exactly merry all the way.