A Tale of Love and Darkness

Parental Rating: PG-13

Contains: Violence    Adult Content    

Jill's Review

Opens September 2, 2016

Runs 95 minutes

This is a true story based on the best-selling memoir of Amos Oz (played by Amir Tessler), a young man growing up during the early years of the State of Israel. He lives with his parents, Arieh (Gilad Kahana) and Fania (Natalie Portman) and is very close to his mother. She is constantly telling him stories of the past. She survived the Holocaust while many others did not and this haunts her. She is unable to overcome her sadness and she slowly fades away into depression, as father and son watch helplessly.

This is definitely a tale of love but mostly of darkness. I was not familiar with the book so I was at a loss coming into this movie. It was directed by Natalie Portman so I was excited to see what kind of movie she chose to make. It was personal to her as she was born in Israel. But, I did not find it that accessible to the average viewer. I thought it was very slow and dreary. Everyone did a fine job but if you were not that familiar with the era and the political climate of the day, the rest of the movie was just a depressing family drama. Natalie did a good job directing her first film, but it was not one of my favorite movies. I would skip it unless you are a huge fan of the book.

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