America

I don't know whether it's an intentional reference to the famous dictum attributed to Chekhov-- that a gun seen on the wall in the first act must be fired on the third-- but near the start of "America" we see a large number of guns on the wall and for the rest of the movie, the screenwriter plays with our expectations. Sometimes their fulfillment comes late, sometimes it's skipped, and sometimes everything seems wrapped up and yet the film inches onward-- carried by a thin thread of music, along with the striking long-skulled face of the lead actress-- until a new development kicks in.

And I don't know whether it's intentional that Michael Moshonov, an Israeli actor who once went off to America with no intent to ever make his home in Israel again, plays Eli-- a character who does the same. Or that his father Moni Moshonov plays a friendly neighbor who is a support to Eli while Eli's parents' marriage is on the rocks. Is the casting supposed to help us imagine that the neighbor is Eli's real father?

Anyway, while the structure of the storytelling is unconventional, it's not unsatisfying. The curiously chosen title-- almost none of the story takes place in America-- apparently refers to America as imagined by the huddled masses. The place where, if you can reach it, everything will be all right.

For a film called 'America', I was not expecting what I got in the end.

The narrative is certainly a melodrama. But the choices in its structure gave me a bit more sense of grandeur and scale.

It's quite poetic in its imagery at times to help enhance the themes a bit more.

But even though some of the content that was happening was dramatic and emotional, something felt off in its execution.

It's hard to pinpoint the negatives. But even though what I was seeing was an interesting melodrama, I wasn't blown away by it emotionally.

It does some unfamiliar choices in its story structures. But the result is something in so many drama's similar to it.

The performances from the main cast were solid for the most part. They felt like a strong trio all contributing in carrying this film and selling the story. But I also might be being a bit harsh on the performances here, but I felt they were lacking that look to help transcend their emotions to the audience.

There's a strong use of flowers in this story and this gave he film a lot of colour which was pleasing to see.

This is a strange one to sum up for me as there's nothing really wrong with it. The story has solid development, three central characters all pull their weight and it has enough emotion to make it worth your time.

Maybe I was in the wrong frame of mind, but it lacked that spark to be an exceptional drama for me. It's as if the film wasn't allowed to let loose and really go for it. It almost felt restricted in what it could do.

I've seen similar drama's done much better and also much worse. It's definitely above average. But I felt like something was missing to be what it should have been.