60
Call it "Brokeback Talmud"--not just for its taboo-busting depiction of a gay affair between Orthodox Israelis, but because it adopts Ang Lee’s slow-burn seriousness almost to a fault.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
90
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
Its scrupulous, humane sympathy gives this small, sorrowful film a glow of insight and a pulse of genuine, openhearted curiosity.
63
Quiet, sober and tense, the movie makes some interesting points -- contrasting the frenzied hookups of the two men with the butcher's rote, dismal lovemaking with his wife as their bodies are carefully hidden under sheets -- but it lacks the emotional firepower of "Brokeback Mountain."
60
Boxoffice Magazine by Mark Keizer
To say the movie is understated is an understatement, yet it’s justified.
60
The Hollywood Reporter by Ray Bennett
The observational detail is impressive and the two men's growing affection is well-drawn but Takerman's depiction of the conventions and strictures of religion and the impulses of two closeted gay men are too understated to achieve universality.