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Critics Consensus: Modern Israeli life is put under the microscope in this well-acted, if contrived, tale by director Savi Gabizon.
Critic Consensus: Modern Israeli life is put under the microscope in this well-acted, if contrived, tale by director Savi Gabizon.
All Critics (31) | Top Critics (12) | Fresh (19) | Rotten (12) | DVD (1)
The dry humor is disarming. The ensemble cast is engaging and interesting to watch. And the main plot, as it were (will Nadav and Nina find respective happiness?), is suspenseful.
A gently quirky, touching comedy from Israel about a young boy's infatuation with his aunt.
Nina's Tragedies is full of gentle, labyrinthian turns, sly and sweet.
Engagingly odd and full of sad, funny moments.
It's well acted, and well written, but it rarely delivers the emotional resonance you keep expecting.
The chief problem with this exasperating and shamelessly contrived award-winning Israeli movie: It doesn't know when to stop telling and start showing.
A dark, morose, confusing hodgepodge of uninteresting and unbelievable characters.
Ayelet Zorer gives Nina grace, sexiness and a real personality. She's someone you'd want to see a movie about, though maybe you'd wish the movie were a little more polished than this one.
Israeli society is one that has ample experience processing grief, and Nina's Tragedies explores that challenge with humanity and humor.
Passing eccentricities of character, but serious trouble staging honest and coherent emotional scenes....a surplus of preciousness and a deficit of truth-ringing reality.
The comedy is feather-light and the emotions are drawn on situation, rather than on genuine involvement with substantively developed characters.
A humorous warts-and-all portrayal of a family.
Nina's Tragedies is a well-done serio-comical look at a young boy growing up in the midst of chaos. The one constant in Nadav's (Aviv Elkabeth) life is his puppy-love for his aunt, Nina (Ayelet Zurer). His father moved out, his mother entertains a string of lovers, and he gets his fondest wish when the woman of his dreams needs someone to help her deal with the sudden death of her husband. The cast is terrific, and the comedy is low-key while dealing with some serious issues of love and trust and abandonment. The pace is slow, to the point of almost losing momentum altogether, but picks up again before complete paralysis takes over. This would have benefited from a slightly firmer hand in the editing room, but was still quite entertaining.
Super Reviewer
[font=Century Gothic][color=teal]"Nina's Tragedies" is a movie from Israel that starts out with a funeral, It then goes back two days when Nadav's uncle is reading his journal which he had lost some days before. The movie is told from teenage Nadav's viewpoint, through his journal, as he observes what goes on in his family's life, especially his young aunt, Nina, who has just become a widow. Nadav is a Peeping Tom(I haven't seen it but did "Brighton Beach Memoirs" have a teenage character whose main goal in life was to see a naked woman while eating ice cream?). It's even more disturbing and creepy when you consider that his partner in crime is a middle-aged man. What's his story?[/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#008080][/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#008080]There is nothing in "Nina's Tragedies" that we have not seen before. (Especially when you compare it to last year's "Broken Wings", also from Israel.) The framing device takes over a movie that should be about the grieving process of the title character. The most memorable parts of the movie involve such tiny details as a wobbly wheel and tracheotomy patients. This is a movie that wants to come to a tidy conclusion for all of its characters. On the plus side, Ayelet Zurer, as the eponymous lead character, is very good. [/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#008080][/color][/font]
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