The Lover

(1985) The Lover/Ha-Me'ahev DUBBED DRAMA

Co-written, directed and also starring Michal Bat-Adadm adapting the story by A. B. Yeehushua of the same name. She plays the mother and teacher, Asia of a teenage girl,Dafi (Avigail Ariely) who lives with her somewhat of loveless husband and car mechanic,Adam (Yehoram Gaon), when one day he brings home a guy, named Gabriel(Roberto Pollack) from Argentina. Mechanic Adam successfully fixes Gabriel's car he was unable to pay for the reason why he brings him into their home. As we soon find out, Gabriel is waiting for his grandmother to pass away by natural causes, so that he can collect the inheritance to pay Adam the money he owed him for fixing his car. And of course, it was during then affairs begin to happen, with Adam even involving a young teenage inspired mechanical co-worker, Na'im from Tel Aviv to do some eavesdropping for him, just because both Gabriel and Adam's wife, Asia have so much in common as Gabriel too is also involved in literature and education.

After reading some of the criticisms on here, I do not mind the soap opera scenario even though the material was not faithful to it's source. Since I believe a movie should be able to hold on it;s own. Movies in general do not have to be 100% faithful as long as it is able to hold on it's own.

This is from the novel _The Lover_ by A.B. Yehoshua, not by Marguerite Duras. Bat-Adam's movie is a sequence of nicely photographed, gamely acted scenes that are deprived of the logic and momentum that the novel gives them. In a unique stroke of miscasting, Bat-Adam the director gives herself the role of a woman who in the novel is motivated by the loss of her youth and attractiveness. Unfortunately, Bat-Adam doesn't know how to be unbeautiful. Another good actor, Yehoram Gaon, is lost in the male lead because his motivation too is left behind on the pages of the novel. What is left is like a series of well-drawn illustrations bereft of text.