"Is That You?" (2014 release from Israel) brings the story of Ronnie, who at the beginning of the movie is fired from his film projector job in Israel, and as part of the compensation package, gets a plane ticket to the US, to visit his brother Jacob (somewhere in New York, it appears). When Jacob tells Ronnie that by happenstance he recently ran into Rachel, Ronnie's flame some 40 years ago back in Israel, Ronnie decides that he wants/needs to meet her. With the help of Jacob's son, they are able to find Rachel's address on the internet (or so they think), and off Ronnie goes on a road trip. To tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.
Couple of comments: this movie is directed and co-written by Dani Menkin (best known for "39 Pounds of Love"). Here, Menkin examines the issue of 'what could've been in life', something that I'm sure many of us can relate to. To get to the bottom of 'the road not take' issue, Menkin decides to make this into a road movie, literally, as Ronnie goes from one place to the next to try and track down the elusive Rachel. Along the way we see him making new friends, hearing other people's stories, etc. but the bottom live is that I never felt emotionally invested in the story, and hence this movie left me mostly unmoved. From a technical perspective, please note that the picture ratio was very peculiar (much narrower than the usual 16:9 ratio), resulting in a very narrow letter box format (I'm guessing the movie screen was close to two-thirds blacked-out). I thought that something wasn't quite right as it started playing, but eventually you get used to it. Bottom line: this isn't a 'bad' movie by any stretch of the imagination, but neither did it come close to what my own expectations for this were.
I recently saw this movie as part of the 2016 Jewish & Israeli Film Festival here in Cincinnati. The one-time screening for this movie was attended very well (as were most of the other movies I attended at the festival). If you are in the mood for a road trip movie, both literally and figuratively, I encourage you to check out "Is That You?".
