Natalie Portman’s directorial debut is an adaptation of a novel by Amos Oz, one of Israel’s most famous writers. Set in Israel around the country’s 1948 birth, Portman’s screenplay is the tale of an intelligent and highly sensitive boy (Amir Tessler) and his intelligent and even more sensitive mother (Portman).
It is the sort of mistily pretty literary adaptation where everyone speaks in complete sentences pregnant with imagery and meaning, and where historic events serve largely to try the souls of the characters, who in turn try the audience’s patience with their lack of messy, energetic real life. The movie’s strength is, surprisingly, the narration, spoken with gentle gravity by Moni Moshonov. Portman clearly loves Oz’s writing, and in these speeches the brilliance of the source shines through.