Sipur Hatzi-Russi

The movie's Hebrew name means "A Half-Russian Story." At the center is a boy with a Russian-born mother and a thoroughly Israeli father who both love him but don't get along. The wife misses the culture she left behind, and the movie continually refers to the shock of displacement that Russian immigrants of the 1990s suffered in Israel. That aspect of the movie works forcefully, but it is superimposed on a can-we-underdogs-win-the-big-competition plot that belongs to a more lighthearted and less realistic genre. There is also a second unsteady marriage involved, and a second competition, and the boy protagonist is in a love triangle. Oh, and there are dance scenes. It adds up to too much material for one movie, so parts remain undeveloped, but most of what we do see is very well presented. The boy actor, David Kogen, has what it takes to carry his role. The actresses playing the two girls who complicate his life do fine for their age, in low-key performances. Among the adult actors, Evgenia Dodina stands out as she does wherever she appears. A decade later, she would do a legendary turn as a hard-nosed theater director in the Israeli TV series Rehearsals (aka Stage Crush). Here she's a hard-nosed dance instructor.