Eliezer Shkolnik and his son Urien are both Talmudic researchers and professors in Jerusalem. Eliezer is bitter as his son receives wide acclaim from the Jewish Studies community. He spent most of his life working on a revolutionary take on an European version of the Talmud only to be scooped by an accidental discovery one month before publishing his own work. He toiled in his work alone. His class has one student. His most noteworthy accomplishment is a footnote in an important textbook. The father and son relationship has traveled a long and problematic road. Eliezer covets the Israel Prize above all else and one day, he gets a calls from the Minister of Education congratulating him. It is big news and then Uriel is told by the Ministry that the call was a mistake and he is the real winner. The head of the committee Grossman is an old foe of Eliezer.
This movie takes a small world and shows how the people in it treat this world as life and death. The opening sequence with Eliezer and the security guard is very compelling. Eliezer is a quietly bitter old man and that scene sets it all up. The problem is that he's not that charismatic as a character. Urien's struggles are more compelling. It's an intriguing premise but I don't find Eliezer lovable enough.
This movie takes a small world and shows how the people in it treat this world as life and death. The opening sequence with Eliezer and the security guard is very compelling. Eliezer is a quietly bitter old man and that scene sets it all up. The problem is that he's not that charismatic as a character. Urien's struggles are more compelling. It's an intriguing premise but I don't find Eliezer lovable enough.