Holy Lands

Not particularly shallow either. It's just trying way too hard. Holy Land expects to tick off the viewers emotions in a box like fashion - emotions don't work like that. Viewing it more resembles an awkward dating experience than the emotional rollercoaster it is trying to be.

Its a drama that does a take on many issues and topics. its an old american emigrating to israel, the holy land, to start a pigfarm, an illdescision in a jewish/muslim area. so he meets grat protests from a lot of religious groups and people.

at the same time his former wife who still live in newyork ,gets ill, and will die soon. they have a son whos gay, and a daughter that seems to full time student forever.

its a story about death,birth, relations, friendship, religion, cousine,rituals,traditions, politics, love, hate, and pigfarming

the technical product is nice, the score lives its own life, the acting are allover good, but what seems to me as a drawback is the fast jumping between the persons and locations. it makes it all seem so incoherent, so if your not in the mood you might leave the show pretty fast. but the playtime is perfect and the story is good so the grumpy old man can recommend a watch

In my opinion, this is the type of movie that should have worked a lot better than it did.

With seasoned fine actors like James Caan Tom Hollander, Rosanna Arquette, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers one would think that even more so. However, the characters here are too superficial, the thematic elements often fall into melodrama, and there are a number of scenes that are just head-shakingly bad.

For example, Caan's character, the cantankerous Harry, who as you probably know by now has moved to Israel to run a pig farm, has not heard from his daughter (Efrat Dor) for a little while as she's traveling to meet him at the farm. So when she finally shows up, what does he do? Hug her:? No! He slaps her hard across the face. Huh? Other than that scene, there's no other traces of Harry being abusive physically.

Overall, there are some moments that work here, but for the most part I thought the film came across as frustrating, even annoying and just didn't work.

Holy Lands is a delightful and realistic film about friendship, family problems and love. The chemistry between the rabbi and the doctor is a joy to watch as their friendship develops. The cast are all tremendous actors and work well together. Jonathan Rhys Meyers in his small role brings a freshness and it's the best film he's done in a long time.

A good film about family relationships, about caring for the family while one is alive. The movie is probably best for those with adult children. A calm and delicate presentation also with humor.