...we should call it Reluctant Parents, the two examples that come to mind being Baby Boom starring Diane Keaton and Big Daddy starring Adam Sandler. Thus begins Orchim leRega: Homeless father Shaul takes custody of teenage daughter Libi...in the middle of Israel's 2006 Lebanon war.
What can I say? Naively, perhaps, I really wanted Shaul's invention to catch on. Thus we would have had a clever movie whose plot takes a downer situation and unexpectedly turns it into a win-win.
Instead, just when I was sure Shaul (and the audience) would have the last laugh all the way to the bank, the two end up just where they started: Shaul is jobless, broke, and still has nowhere to live. A shame. What began as a clever twist that exploits the wartime situation just...ends.
Why in the world couldn't the screenwriter have made Libi, say, 15, not 13? That way, this miserable, lonely teen could have reaped her own happiness from the bizarre situation. And most baffling: She justifiably calls her dad a loser, yet after he humiliates her and gives up his big chance at making something of himself...she goes back to him. Why?
What can I say? Naively, perhaps, I really wanted Shaul's invention to catch on. Thus we would have had a clever movie whose plot takes a downer situation and unexpectedly turns it into a win-win.
Instead, just when I was sure Shaul (and the audience) would have the last laugh all the way to the bank, the two end up just where they started: Shaul is jobless, broke, and still has nowhere to live. A shame. What began as a clever twist that exploits the wartime situation just...ends.
Why in the world couldn't the screenwriter have made Libi, say, 15, not 13? That way, this miserable, lonely teen could have reaped her own happiness from the bizarre situation. And most baffling: She justifiably calls her dad a loser, yet after he humiliates her and gives up his big chance at making something of himself...she goes back to him. Why?