Excellent, Without a doubt!!

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

This collection of remarkable talent was assembled on a weak script. If the average middle class Isareli family is self centered, morally slack, and shallow, this movie has nailed it. I suspect, however, that the producers intended a tantilizing film, and succeeded by delivering plenty of superficality. The lack of substance, despite strong performances, reminds the viewer that all that glitters is not gold.

One might have thought that arranged marriages are a thing of the past among Israeli Jews. But according to this bittersweet comedy, the tradition is alive and well, at least among the conservative Georgian Jewish community in Israel the movie is set on (director Kashashivili belongs to that community). The protagonist of the movie is Zaza, an unmarried man in his early thirties and graduate student in philosophy (played by the fine actor Lior Ashkenazi, who starred as the brutal Mossad agent in another great Israeli movie, Walk on Water). His concerned family shows him young, attractive, and eligible girls, but he resists them all - since he already has a secret love affair with Judith, a sexually liberated divorced mother. Zaza knows his extended family would never accept Judith; but when they find out, the results are worse than you can imagine. Let just say, quoting one critic, that joining the Foreign Legion is probably preferable than living with such suffocating family. The ending is quite sad, but this is a remarkable film.

This film is certainly well acted. The actors seem like real people. They have characters that are fleshed out in sufficient fashion. The film deals with a life situation that is unknown to me and thusly a good thing--by providing insight in a slice of life that I would never have known about. All of that may make one think that this is a film worth watching. That is not the case. When it was over, I kept thinking, "what a waste of time." I can enjoy a "small film" as this certainly is and generally tend to prefer them over typical Hollywood blockbusters. In my opinion, this was a small film whose audience probably is those who are affected by Israeli customs. I guess for me, it did not speak to my life in any way and seemed like a waste, even though I can say that it was about as well done as it could be for what it was about.Have I confused you? I suppose the issue is, unless you have a particular interest in daily Israeli customs, I doubt you would find this worth your time. Also, I think the reason this film was such a downer for me is because there were no sympathetic characters, no one I could care about. They were all bound by custom and none could live successfully against the repressive rules. Not that I demand a happy ending, it just seemed unremittingly depressing for no good end. It wasn't a bad film but I would prefer to have those hours back.

Absolutely superb film, concise and to the point. One of the things that I liked the most is how the writer/director, takes an obviously ethnic film and presents it in a way where people around the world can empathize even if they know nothing about the jewish culture or customs. The emotional themes presented in this film are mostly universal, when it comes to marriage, in my opinion a lot of factors come into play no matter what culture you come from, and this film portrays in some ways how silly it all is. If you don't mind the subtitles, is a great film, has great characters and a very interesting story line, although is very graphic at times (Steamy love scenes) be forewarned if you don't like to see nudity, is not your conventional hollywood soft porn b movie. Enjoy the film with friends, it's one of those that makes you ask all the right questions.