Noodle

I recently saw this at the 2008 Palm Springs International Film Festival where it was among the announced audience favorites at the end of the festival. It's a good story from Israeli director Ayelet Menahemi who co-wrote the screenplay along with Shemi Yarhin. It's a sweet little comedic drama about Miri (Mili Avital) who is a woman who is only in her late 30's but is already twice widowed. Mili works as a El Al flight attendant and lives with her sister Gila (Anat Waxman) who is having marriage problems with her husband Izzy (Alon Aboutboul). One day the apartment's Chinese housekeeper (Vicky Lyn) asks Miri if she can leave her six year old son (BoaQui Chen) for an hour and Miri agrees to watch him but the mother never returns. They can't communicate with the Chinese only speaking boy and they give him the nickname Noodle while they search for his mother and ultimately a way to reunite the mother and child through the help of Mati (Yiftach Klein) who is a family friend and former neighbor of Miri and Gila. The story is sometimes hard to believe but it's a good ride none the less and certainly a charming tale. Director Menahemi has had a very sporadic career in his 20 years as a director making only three documentaries, three narrative features and one short in all that time. With this, his third feature narrative, I would hope he is inspired enough by it's success to create more films. It won the Grand Jury Prize and Best Screenplay at the Montreal World Film Festival and I'm sure it's been a crowd pleaser at other festivals it's played besides Montral and Palm Springs. I would give this an 8.0 out of 10 and recommend it.

The film has a charming atmosphere of everyday and "it could really happen" even though it certainly is a fairy tale and there are several almost impossible elements in the plot - security issues, how children are normally treated, and time discrepancies. The shots are well planned and acting is natural. Somehow the lighting always seems natural. I especially liked the quick conversations with Gila and her friends, and Gila's daughter's sababa-comments. Many scenes were fresh - not as predictable as you'd expect. As always, the behind scenes bonus material on the DVD is worth watching. This movie leaves you in a good mood!

Noodle (2007) is an Israeli film directed and co-written by Ayelet Menahemi. Mili Avital plays the elegant Miri Calderone, an El Al flight attendant you has been twice widowed by war. Her life isn't empty, but it's emotionally sterile. Her Chinese maid rushes out of the house one day, and disappears. Miri and her sister find themselves caring for the young Chinese son of the Chinese woman. (The boy, whom they call "Noodle," is played well by BaoQi Chen.) He speaks no English and no Hebrew, and neither of the sisters speak Chinese.

The results are predictable, but the film has unexpected depth. Neither Mili, nor her sister, nor her sister's estranged husband, are cardboard figures. Each has a story and each has a life. Some of the supporting cast, especially the woman who played the immigration officer, are excellent. The film is well edited and has good production values.

One aspect of the movie surprised me. It could have been set in any developed country, not just Israel. Nothing about the situation--other than the manner in which Miri lost her husbands-- made this a film stamped, "Made in Israel." Whether this is good news or bad news depends on your outlook.

This film will work well on DVD, although we saw it at the Dryden Theatre as part of the excellent Rochester Jewish Film Festival. It's worth seeing if you're in the mood for a solid movie that's more heartwarming than dramatic.

Okay, the movie suffers from several absurdities as the plot is forced forward; but no more absurdities than you generally find in an adventure movie. And it is an adventure movie, although the adventure is not about transporting a diamond across the treacherous Andes but about finding security for a stranded boy amid the frustrations of bureaucracy and the distractions of job and family. (One of the absurdities is that when necessary, a job such as gym teaching seems to pose no obstacle to scheduling or financing a quick plane ride across the world.) The usually glamorous Mili Avital and the usually super-cute Anat Waxman look as if they were willing to forgo a layer or two of make-up to look realistically middle-class. The boy actor whose believability is essential retains that believability while leaving no scene unstolen.

I enjoyed this film a lot more than most American films I have seen lately. Granted, the plot is somewhat absurd and based on improbable coincidences--but the characters are real. I have often found this true of Israeli films. We get the feeling that we are looking at a real slice of life, whereas in the typical American film we seem to be in some make-believe world. I don't know why American scriptwriters can't seem to create the same mood that their Israeli counterparts can.I especially liked the way the child's personality developed. The scene where he teaches the adults how to eat Chinese food is priceless. It's also refreshing to see a film about essentially decent people (except for the bureaucrats).