A Tale of Love and Darkness

Natalie Portman’s directorial debut, A Tale of Love and Darkness unfolds against the backdrop of Israel’s creation and follows a young boy (Amir Tessler’s Amos) as he endures adolescence under decidedly harsh circumstances. The seemingly straight-forward premise has been augmented with a host of digressions and diversions, however, and the picture consequently grows less and less involving as it unfolds – with Portman’s palpably ambitious sensibilities paving the way for a narrative that is, for the most part, momentum free. It becomes apparent fairly early on that Portman, who also penned the screenplay, has little interest in transforming the various protagonists into plausible, three-dimensional figures, as moments of character development are often (and primarily) overshadowed by oddball subplots and terminally underwhelming flights of fancy – including a series of dream sequences that contribute nothing to the movie’s central storyline. The arms-length vibe is perpetuated by a continuing emphasis on laughably pompous instances of dialogue (eg “my mother grew up in an ethereal culture of misted beauty, whose wings were finally dashed on the harsh Jerusalem stone, hot and dusty”), with Portman’s trying-too-hard efforts at cultivating a profound and poetic vibe undoubtedly playing a significant role in cementing the movie’s downfall. It is, in the end, fairly apparent that A Tale of Love and Darkness stands as an abject failure that just doesn’t work on any level, with the film’s total lack of emotional resonance especially disappointing given its searing true-life subject matter.

* out of ****