Noodle

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.

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.

I came across this on Netflix and was intrigued, having never heard of the film before. I decided to give it a chance without even bothering to look at a rating or reviews. I really enjoyed the acting and writing, which is top notch for keeping you involved and interested, as the various back-stories of the intertwined characters is slowly revealed. There is a nice combination of light comedy, drama and adventure, mixed with relationships, grief, and more, that doesn't seem to follow any specific genre template. As the characters move towards solving their own deep issues, the story arch of re-uniting a lost child with his mother has universal appeal.

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.

I certainly let the title of this film mislead me for quite some time. Even after viewing the trailer, I still had absolutely no desire to watch this flick, that was my first mistake.

My second mistake was Mili Avital. Based on some of her past films - many of which I could not sit through, I just didn't think she had the acting chops to pull off an interesting character. How wrong I was on both accounts. First of all, the trailer (as the case with many Israeli films) just does not do justice to this movie. From beginning to end, this movie is excellent. I commend the director Ayelet Menahemi for this quality production - from the direction to the pace of the movie and excellent all around cast.

But the real compliment belongs to Ayelet Menahemi for bringing out the realistic and raw talent of the films leading lady. In Ms Avital's prior films, she was always cast as the pretty girl. Many or rather most of those films were horrendous along with her performances. But not here, her performance was believable, honest, raw and pitch perfect. She was rightfully nominated for an Israeli Oscar (Ophir) but lost out to the highly dramatic Ronit Elkabetz. This one film changed my entire perception of Ms Avital and now I highly anticipate her next Israeli project.