Natalie Portman makes her directorial debut with this adaptation of Israeli novelist Amos Oz's memoir about his bittersweet childhood and his parents' relationship. Young Amos (
Amir Tessler) vows never to become a writer like his grim father (
Gilad Kahana), and instead has great sympathy for his romantic, literature-loving mother Fania (Portman), whom he understands has married beneath her station. Her stories about her life in Poland before her marriage, and her dashed dreams about a lover more suited to her delicate nature, are told against the backdrop of Jerusalem's liberation from British rule. ~ Violet LeVoit
