Naomi (2010) User Reviews

Attempted Chabrol

[hof-4 · 3/10 · 13 October 2015]

Up to and during the scene husband-confronts-wife's-lover the movie follows closely Chabrol's "La femme infidèle" As imitation goes, not a very good one; to begin with, the actors do not match the charisma and personality of their French counterparts.

The problem begins with the killing of the lover by the husband (old flabby husband overpowers young, fit lover with bare hands, lover doesn't see it coming, audience does). This is followed by the the disposal of the body, which strains credibility to the limit. In fact, credibility doesn't seem to be an objective of the script. There is a bit of black comedy in charge of the husband's mother, which is perhaps the only redeeming feature of the film.

The husband is an astrophysicist and lectures on cosmic collisions: when a star comes too close to another a thermonuclear reaction ensues. Yes, we get the point.

Modest in scope but very well executed

[Nozz · 8/10 · 14 September 2010]

Orna Porat is a grande dame of Israeli theater, and Yossi Pollak too is at the top of the A list: when mounting an ancient or modern masterpiece, these are the actors you would trust on stage. It's seldom either of them takes a film role these days, so NAOMI is already an event of significance. The title character is a beautiful young woman-- the dialog occasionally reminds us how beautiful she is, and how mysterious-- but her role, as acted by Melanie Peres, does not contribute a weight that counterbalances the expressively sagging faces of the veteran actors; it is easier to consider that the movie is all about how she affects the others than that it is even partly about her as a person. What drives the movie is the tension of the situations besetting Pollak (including possible criminal suspicion), with some blackly comic relief that as often as not involves Porat as his sharp-tongued mother. The Hebrew title of the movie is, more or less, ERUPTION OF X, referring to a cosmic phenomenon that occurs when celestial bodies are too close together. Aside from the idea that eruptions may happen when people are too close together, the movie seems to have no grand theme, and it also has no grand cinematic effects. Aside from the benefit of detail as the camera rests on the actors' faces, this is a movie that would lose nothing on the small screen and for many minutes at a time could even just as well be on the stage. But the suspense and uneasiness build quickly and remain well sustained, the story is tight, the impressive talents of the major actors are not wasted, and if I were the mogul with the budgets, I would think seriously about planning a Hollywood remake of this tense vehicle for veteran actors.