Perhaps at no other time since its founding in 1948 did the State of Israel come as close to being wiped off the map than during the Yom Kippur War in October 1973. Backed by a host of Arab and Soviet-aligned countries, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on two fronts on the holiest day of the Jewish year. Those tense days as well as the woman who led the Israelis in defending their homeland, Golda Meir, is examined in a new, and controversial, film by Oscar-winning Israeli director Guy Nattiv (SKIN; MABUL (THE FLOOD)).

As GOLDA opens, Israeli prime minister Golda Meir (Helen Mirren, SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS; THE GOOD LIAR) is appearing before a tribunal set up in her country to examine the intelligence failures of the war. Israeli politics being what they were and still are, it seems that at least one of Golda’s senior advisors sat on information that Egypt and Syria intended to mobilize on Yom Kippur while others in her camp fought over how many Israeli soldiers should be called up to active duty in preparation for the perceived attack. It was a disaster for the tiny country, especially in the war’s early days, as the Egyptian and Syrian forces, along with their allies, vastly outnumbered and outmanoeuvered the unprepared Israeli army. But the 75-year-old, chain-smoking grandmother kept it all together even as she was battling her own war on cancer. Very much the hands-on leader, Golda visited the underground war rooms every day to discuss strategic plans with her generals. Above ground, she negotiated with American secretary of state Henry Kissinger (played by Liev Schreiber, SPOTLIGHT; FADING GIGOLO) while never losing sight that even one death of a soldier is one death too many.

Over the past few years, maybe even longer than that, we’ve been getting films that feature a strong central performance by a woman but the rest of the movie is a disappointment. That’s what we had with THE WIFE (Glenn Close) in 2019 and with JUDY (Renee Zellweger) in 2020, and it’s what we have here with GOLDA. While Mirren does a great job under mounds of prosthetics and a wiry grey wig, the story doesn’t crackle the way it should. This was a scary time for Israel, one that every Jew of a certain age, no matter whether they lived in Israel or in the diaspora, remembers quite well. I remember it and I was living in Canada at the time. My next-door neighbour was getting married the day after Yom Kippur. As we all gathered around their dinner table to break the holiday fast together, what should have been a happy time was instead a very nervous time. We all had family and friends in Israel that we hadn’t heard from. One of my brothers was living there at the time and although he wasn’t in the army, we still didn’t know his whereabouts. We also had cousins whose husbands and sons were most likely mobilized. They were and thankfully they all survived. They were the lucky ones.

But that’s the problem with GOLDA. There’s no tension, and especially for audiences who are not familiar with the history or with the character, this movie isn’t going to encourage them to learn more. Like THE WIFE and JUDY, it’s completely forgettable. In this respect, the fault lies with the screenwriter Nicholas Martin, who also co-wrote the wonderfully quirky FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS. After I saw the movie with three of my colleagues, their only comment was, “Wow, she smoked a lot.” Yes, she did, but she was also one tough broad who was smart and confident on the outside but a softie on the inside. This, unfortunately, wasn’t emphasized enough in the film.

I can’t leave this review without addressing the elephant in the room; that is, the casting of Mirren, a non-Jew, as Golda, a Jew. Many of my brethren have come out on social media over the past year to decry this blatant example of “Jew-face”. Forgive me, my people, I’m definitely not siding with you on this. Sure, I would have preferred to see someone like Tova Feldshuh in the role. Maybe she wasn’t asked or perhaps the studio wanted to have a more familiar face. Either way, it’s such a ridiculous claim that only Jews should play Jews on film. Considering that there are so many Jewish actors in Hollywood, should they be excluded from playing gentiles because of their religion? This is not the same as blackface even though many in my religion claim that Bradley Cooper donning an extra-large nose prosthetic to play Leonard Bernstein is tantamount to the same thing. Okay, I’ll grant that the size of the prosthetic was unnecessary but this is what acting is. Just as I don’t mind gays playing straight roles, straight people taking on gay roles, able-bodied people playing disabled characters or whatever, I also don’t mind Helen Mirren, Bradley Cooper, Courtney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Rachel Brosnahan or Tony Shalhoub playing Jewish characters. This is not rooted in racism or exclusion the way blackface was. Disagree with me all you want. I’m done.

GOLDA opens in Hong Kong today (September 21st). It’s not bad; it’s just not as good as it could have been.

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