A slyly subversive insight into the role of women in the Israeli military, this is a surprisingly compassionate satire that makes its political points without resorting to caricature.
Comment
05/07/07
Close to Home (2007)
67 %
Reviews Counted: 33 Fresh: 22 Rotten:11 Average Rating: 6.3/10
Consensus:
While Close to Home devotes too much time chastising military service, its female perspective is unique and refreshing.
Runtime: 1 hr 39 mins
Theatrical Release: 06-04-2007
Synopsis: Life as a teenage girl in Israel isn't easy. Just ask Smadar (Smadar Sayar) and Mirit (Naama Schendar), two 18-year-olds who spend their workdays wearing fatigues as officers in the Israeli Army. Vidi Bilu and Dalia Hagar's CLOSE TO HOME addresses the challenging concept of a country in which... [More]
Genre: Foreign Films
Starring: Naama Shendar, Smadar Sayar, Sharon Raginiano, Ami Weinberg
Director: Vardit Bilu, Dalia Hagar
Screenwriter: Vardit Bilu
Producer: Marek Rosenbaum, Itai Tamir
Composer: Yonatan Bar-Giora
Screenwriter: Vardit Bilu
Producer: Marek Rosenbaum, Itai Tamir
Composer: Yonatan Bar-Giora
Reviews
Top Critic Top Critic
More a buddy movie than a political one, it nonetheless captures the festering tensions of a divided city.
04/03/07
Top Critic
As a whole the film feels trite in the way it trivialises and sentimentalises what it is claiming to be an inherently flawed system.
10/28/06
Top Critic
Our wide eyed, angel faced chayalot drift hypnotized toward the center of the chaos and we realize that in Israel, there cannot be a movie about just regular teenage girls
10/02/07
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09/22/07
Close to Home is no buddy-cop, action-comedy ... it leaves out the action and the comedy so all that is left is a predictable narrative with no entertainment appeal.
09/18/07
A haunting autopsy of how the personal can obliterate the political, as the oppressors rationalize, repress and then casually repeat the day-to-day injustices they're paid to commit for a society eager to forget its sins.
09/03/07
While Close to Home follows a predictable path in its story, it's not without its charms, much of it down to the very believable portrayal of the young soldiers who view many of their duties with the world-weariness of terminally bored teens.
05/18/07
Both [main actresses] show their characters' growth while steadfastly and, sadly, unsuccessfully trying to hold on to the last vestiges of their innocence. If that's not the real tragedy of life in the Middle East, I don't know what is.
05/18/07
One of the most unusual coming-of-age stories I've ever seen, "Close to Home" offers the same teen-angst themes as some American movies but against a backdrop of war and politics.
05/18/07
Although its location and plot points are worlds away from typical Hollywood teen-angst fare, some of its themes are undeniably universal.
03/23/07
Top Critic
The movie is awkwardly mounted and formlessly episodic as it meanders from one day to the next, finally losing itself in a forest of coming-of-age clichés.
03/22/07
Solemn, abrasive, connect-the-dots predictable and fairly dull. The two young leads are terrible actors, which only makes matters worse.
03/20/07
This movie just seems like a scattered excuse to make political points without saying much of anything. Worse, it also fails to show us, with any vividness, how Mirit and Smadar think and feel as women.
03/10/07
An intimate and well-realized coming-of-age drama about two Israeli teenagers doing obligatory military service in Jerusalem.
02/25/07
Though the subject matter is original, and these young soldiers portrayed with great sympathy, Close to Home would have benefited from more disciplined storytelling.
02/24/07
One of the rare movies from Israel that refuses to spell out its politics, and you may wind up grateful for the ambiguity.
02/21/07
Like many Israeli films, Close to Home is strikingly sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians and, as such, qualifies as exemplary humanism under the most extreme pressure.
02/21/07
Close to Home is close to boring without some people-watching and problem-probing.
02/20/07
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