Ushpizin (2005)
Average Rating: 7.4/10
Reviews Counted: 61
Fresh: 57 | Rotten: 4
Ushpizin offers a rare and warmly intimate look into ultra-Orthodox Jewish culture.
Average Rating: 7.7/10
Critic Reviews: 22
Fresh: 22 | Rotten: 0
Ushpizin offers a rare and warmly intimate look into ultra-Orthodox Jewish culture.
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Average Rating: 3.9/5
User Ratings: 3,408
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Movie Info
The insular world of Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem comes to the screen (with their blessings) in this warm comedy drama. Moshe (Shuli Rand) was once a secular Jew, but he rediscovered his faith and became an ultra-Orthodox Jew, and with his wife, Mali (Michal Bat Sheva Rand), he struggles to support their family. With the harvest festival of Sukkot around the corner, Moshe is broke, and asks for help from a yeshiva charitable fund. Moshe is told the fund has been depleted, and he and Mali are left
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All Critics (68) | Top Critics (23) | Fresh (58) | Rotten (4) | DVD (5)
[The film] places a captivating life study in the context of a modern fairy tale.
Top CriticVery light, even saccharine at times, but blessed with enough pure charm to make the syrup go down a treat.
An unexpected delight from an unlikely source, Ushpizin is the first feature film set inside the closed community of Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Jews.
It had me, this film with blessings on its mind.
Ushpizin will certainly be manna to people of religious sensibility, but you need not be a believer to appreciate its humor and humanity.
Viewers who aren't familiar with Orthodox Jewish culture might have trouble fully relating to this Israeli film. But everyone should be able to appreciate its heartwarming tone.
An orthodox Jew will identify and thereby raise the level of the movie to something beyond the temporal film experience
Dryly funny and richly humane, Ushpizin marries biblical simplicity to secular banality to depict an everyday miracle of devotion rewarded.
Ushpizin is engaging, entertaining and has something to say about us humans, through the prism of discovering %u2013 or re-discovering %u2013 the importance of faith, and the strength it can impart. Especially under duress.
In addition to providing a fascinating, agenda-free look at an unseen way of life, the film presents a lesson that should be welcome among people of any faith or none at all.
Devout and delightful. That's a rare one-two punch for a feature film. Ushpizin pulls it off.
The film provides a valuable glimpse into the religious practices of ultra-Orthodox Jews living in Jerusalem. But it's also a cleverly plotted film, which, refreshingly, also features a few welcome comic elements.
The type of well-written and thoughtful family film that some may have been clamoring for since the hugely successful and hugely formulaic My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
has educational value, but it's the wrong kind
The film rests squarely on the backs of Rand and his wife, who snatches the spotlight from her professionally trained husband in her acting debut.
Sweet and satisfying.
At once alien and familiar: part Old World folk tale, part inspirational sitcom.
Audience Reviews for Ushpizin
Super Reviewer
Pretty entertaining and funny throughout, and, oh, such a funny but sad conclusion! Those who haven't seen it will probably never guess it, either.
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Foreign Titles
- Holy Guests (Ha-Ushpizin) (DE)
- Holy Guests (Ha-Ushpizin) (UK)
