Costume designer Ella (Dana Ivgy) has been carrying on an affair with a married playwright (Itamar Rotschild, who also plays the playwright’s brother Dan). Then one day he dies, quite unexpectedly, and she doesn’t find out until she arrives for work at the theater. Nor is she notified of the funeral ((which typically take place within 24 hours of death by Jewish custom) because everyone just wishes she and her forbidden relationship would just disappear and not embarrass them or upset the man’s family, particularly his widow Natasha (Ania Bukstein).
And yet Ella needs to process her grief despite being locked out of the rituals her culture provides for that process. It’s a ridiculous position to be in but she isn’t one to give up easily. She decides to show to his shiva (a mourning ritual that lasts for seven days) but is confronted thereby colleagues who know about her relationship with the deceased man and, once again, just want her and any signs of her illicit relationship to disappear. It’s easy to sympathize with her colleagues’ point of view: being a side piece comes with built-in limitations that they feel she should recognize, and above all she shouldn’t insert herself into the lives of people with whom she has no rightful relationship.
Her own family has mixed reactions to the news. Her mother is sympathetic, her sister more matter of fact, and her father just thinks it’s good riddance to bad rubbish—why, he asks, should his beautiful and talented daughter “waste her time on a married Schmuck?” It’s a reasonable question, but not what Ella needs to hear at this particular moment, and their visit leaves her herself feeling more alone than ever. Still, you never lack confidence in her ability to deal with this ridiculous situation nor her willingness to do so.
The Other Widow is a darkly comic look at modern Israeli life that expertly manages the tricky balance between recognizing the transgressive nature of Ella’s relationship and feeling empathy for her as a woman sincerely in mourning. We all know desires (and behavior) aren’t always governed by logic and propriety, but we sometimes lack the patience and understanding to let our fellow imperfect humans work things out for themselves. Ivgy does a fine job making her character sympathetic, which is essential: if the film allowed us to dismiss her as self-centered, there would be reason to watch her story play out.
The Other Widow is an assured directorial debut for Maayan Rypp (she previously directed several well-received shorts), who also co-wrote the screenplay for this film with Anat Gafni. For a small-scale film, it also looks great, thanks to Moshe Mishali’s cinematography and Ido Dolev’s art direction.
Two key scenes show how the same story can be told either comically or tragically. In the first, which stands as a metaphor for her illicit relationship, Ella receives an unexpected delivery of Thai food, which she thinks must have been ordered by her lover. She sets the table up nicely, putting the takeout in her own dishes, only for the delivery man (Ben Drori) to reappear and take it all away again, because it was not intended for her in the first place. The same botched delivery is referenced again much later in the film, with an outcome that places it in a much darker light, and the combination of the two leaves you contemplating the bizarre and unexpected turns that life can take. | Sarah Boslaugh
The Other Widow is distributed on DVD by Kino Lorber. The only extra on the disc is the trailer.
