Directed By Guy Nattiv

Starring – Helen Mirren, Zed Josef, Liev Schreiber

The Plot – Set during the tense 19 days of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (Mirren) is faced with the potential of Israel’s complete destruction, and now must navigate overwhelming odds, a skeptical cabinet, and a complex relationship with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (Schreiber), with millions of lives in the balance. Her tough leadership and compassion would ultimately decide the fate of her nation and leave her with a controversial legacy around the world.

Rated PG-13 for thematic material and pervasive smoking

(2) GOLDA | Official Trailer | Bleecker Street – YouTube

POSITIVES

Like most biopics based on historical figures, the name on the header of the markee does all of the heavy lifting, and in this instance Mirren is happy to oblige with a truly transformative performance that embodies Meir in every measurement of sight and sound, respectively. On her emotional approach to the role, Mirren surrounds herself with the overwhelming grief and hefty responsibility of leading a nation into war, against one of the biggest armies in the world, all while surmising an element of stoicism to her portrayal that not only vividly outlines the bravery of the Prime Minister, but also the empathy that she shared in every heartbreaking loss, as evidenced by her character writing the names of each of them in her pocket book. On the visual end of things, the hair and make-up department work overtime to mirror the likeness of Meir, with cheek prosthetics, a greying wig, and meticulous scar patterns that breed life-like over artificiality, all in brandishing the production’s single biggest evidence of an effective budget. Aside from Mirren, Liev Schreiber also hands in another utilizing effort, this time as Henry Kissinger, who doesn’t need the same kind of prosthetics work to become his character. Instead, Schreiber maximizes the appeal of his voice inflections, triggering the familiarity of the U.S Secretary of State, in what easily feels like more of a portrayal than it ever does an impression. Beyond the two likeable leads, the film is blessed with exaggerated directional impulses from Nattiv that at least attempts to make up for the story’s inferiorities, which attempt to build on at least some temporary elements of urgency and tension. In particular, the editing schemes with corresponding fantastical imagery, and intricacy in sound designs, paint a psychologically subversive impact to the proceedings that often transcends the events in real time, offering perhaps the most intimate vantage point into Meir’s dreaded disposition, while offering us that shred of prominence into a film that we unfortunately didn’t get.

NEGATIVES

The counterproductive elements of the experience start to mount in a screenplay full of problems, as well as a couple of aspects of production, which diminish the appeal of “Golda’s” magnitude. For starters, the film is saddled with a clumsy framing device, which not only does the film rarely transition back towards, but also wipes any element of urgency from the conflict, as we’re frequently being told the events of the past by a woman who is living happily in the present. On top of this, the scope and scale of both this intimate chapter of Meir’s life, as well as the hundred year war between Israel and the Arab coalition, feels drastically irresponsible, especially when the latter is condensed into a 95 minute run time and opening backstory delve throughout various newspaper clippings, each with their own issues of establishment to the learning audience from beyond the screen. These visuals flash by with the velocity of a high speed chase, which makes it all the more difficult to properly focus on the evidence that they’re continuously trying to convey, which all but matches the consistency of the screenplay, in its rapid fire progression. It’s bad enough that the characterization outside of our titular protagonist is as one-dimensional as sentences pieced together on a Wikipedia biography, but it’s made even worse when our commitment to remain saddled with Meir keeps us free from the tension or explosive pay-offs of on-the-ground conflict, which feels like tragic ignorance in not depicting the conditions of the solidiers held in the balance of two combating sides. Because so much of the developments are exploited free from the tribulations of the war zone, the result are these boring meetings of the minds, which take as much time to document developments as a single solitary sequence on the battlefield could easily establish, leaving it a poor use of the minimized minutes that it already has. Finally, while most of the technical components find a vital necessity in Nattiv’s occasionally showy direction, two such elements of presentation create glaring distractions, in turn supplanting the focus where it certainly doesn’t need to be. The first is certainly the cinematography, with its ugly color grading that screams cheapness in every alienating visual, and the second is the bombastic musical score from Dascha Dauenhauer, which would be easy enough to ignore with its annoying instrumentals, but is mixed at a volume level that occasionally drowns out the overhead dialogue of the ensemble, creating even more distance from an already alienated audience who are hanging by strings in a film that is every bit boring as it is artistically artificial.

OVERALL
“Golda” has a fascinating real-life story that begs the silver screen treatment, but its underwhelming execution hinders the legacy of Israel’s most decorated leader, with a cinematic rendering with many creative casualities. Though Mirren and Schreiber are masters of transformative work, and Nattiv’s direction hints at an underlining greatness, the flatly frenetic screenplay ultimately comes to define it, leaving this another underwhelming entertainment exploit that inadvertantly recommends and appraises value to any documentary made about that figure.

My Grade: 4/10 or D