ShareThisLike a raft bobbing in the ocean, "Jellyfish" drifts from here to there, moving toward the shore and then skittering back with the waves. It shifts from one woman's story to another's in Tel Aviv, with water as a unifying theme.Sometimes it's as obvious as a hotel with a seaside view or a 5-year-old girl who walks out of the surf, or as roundabout as a ceiling leak, a request for water in a language that is not understood, a child's toy boat or a truck whose exterior is painted ocean blue."Jellyfish" focuses on three women: Batya (Sarah Adler), a waitress who works at a catering hall specializing in weddings; Keren (Noa Knoller), a bride whose reception is going swimmingly until she becomes trapped in a restroom stall and breaks her leg climbing over the door; and Joy (Ma-nenita De Latorre), a Filipina domestic worker who cares for one elderly woman and then another.As the story opens, Batya's boyfriend is moving out of the apartment they share, the newlyweds must change their honeymoon plans because of her injury and Joy is caught between squabbling siblings and then a contentious mother-daughter pair.Co-directed by Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen, "Jellyfish" provides only glimpses into the women's lives, with Batya fleshed out more than the others. She caters to guests at weddings but comes from a fractious family where a blissful outing long ago was ruined by bickering.As snapshots -- a bride wearing white but in the form of a plaster cast, or a blue-eyed girl with an inner tube snug around her hips -- "Jellyfish" is a striking collection. But the connections among the three women are tenuous and some unaddressed questions are glaring. Other than serving the story, why would a woman from the Philippines seek work in Tel Aviv when she speaks no Hebrew? And, when it comes to one character, writer Geffen seems to want to have it both ways -- surreally symbolic and flesh and bones.However arresting and dreamlike the images are, "Jellyfish" fails to fully satisfy as a movie, even one just 78 minutes long.Rating: Not rated. In Hebrew, with English subtitles.(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette movie editor Barbara Vancheri can be reached at bvancheri(at)post-gazette.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Characters meander in cross-cultural 'Jellyfish'
Submitted by SHNS on Thu, 07/10/2008 - 13:52
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