The Other Story

From director Avi Nesher comes this wildly unfocused drama centered around a young woman (Joy Rieger’s Anat) set to marry a deeply-religious musician, with the narrative following Anat’s parents (Maya Dagan’s Tali and Yuval Segal’s Yonatan) as they attempt to surreptitiously put a stop to the impending nuptials. (There’s also a bizarre subplot detailing Yonatan’s efforts at helping a struggling couple overcome their various problems, including and especially the wife’s newfound membership within a pagan cult!) It’s clear immediately that filmmaker Nesher isn’t looking to craft a subtle, low-key familial drama here, as The Other Story has been packed with elements of decidedly broad and melodramatic variety (ie the movie seems to consist of scene after scene of characters yelling and getting angry at one another) – and yet there’s little doubt that the film is, for a while, more entertaining than one might’ve anticipated, albeit in a trashy, nighttime soap kind of way. The picture’s all-over-the-place sensibilities eventually grow exhausting, however, and it’s not long before one begins to crave even a single scene of authentic substance – with the progressively uninvolving vibe compounding by a growing absence of momentum (ie the whole thing just meanders to a somewhat astonishing degree). It goes without saying that the resolution to the two diametrically-opposed storylines is as unsatisfying and anticlimactic as one might’ve feared, which ultimately cements The Other Story‘s place as a seriously oddball endeavor that never should’ve made it past the script stage.

** out of ****