Footnote

This Oscar nominee probably deserved the Best Foreign Language Film award over the winner, A Separation. Lior Ashkenazi delivers an unforgettable performance as Uriel Shkolnik, a Talmudic professor awarded the Israel Prize. However, he has one big problem: The giver of the prize calls his father, Eliezer (Shlomo Bar-Aba), another professor, by mistake, and tells him he has won. Uriel undergoes a major crisis of conscience: Does he tell his father the truth, or does he give up the reward to his extremely stubborn father? This is one of the better father-son movies I’ve seen in a long time, with Ashkenazi and Bar-Aba creating a very real dynamic. Ashkenazi is especially good as an honorable man who has been seeking fatherly approval his whole life, while Bar-Aba scores high marks for playing an unrepentant, arrogant jerk for whom you can’t help but feel sorry. The movie, written and directed by Joseph Cedar, is often funny, but is quite serious and appropriately painful.