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Israel · 2010
1h 52m
Director Avi Nesher
Starring Adir Miller, Maya Dagan, Tuval Shafir, Dror Keren
Genre Drama
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In the summer of 1968, teenage Arik gets hired by matchmaker Yankele Bride. A Holocaust survivor, Yankele introduces Arik to a new world built on the ruins of an old one. While working for the man who holds the keys to the human heart, Arik finds himself falling for someone too.
The efficient approach and tendency toward broad strokes prevent the movie from taking a deep hold, and Mr. Shafir is a hesitant young actor to have at the center. But, like the title character, Mr. Nesher demonstrates a practical intelligence for making basic connections.
A former stand-up comic, Miller lends a sense of puckish mischief to his tenderhearted, troubled Cupid, yet everything else about this drama - even the cultural and spirit-of-'68 historical touches - feels like Nesher is simply mashing several stock elements together and gracelessly parading them around.
Slant Magazine by Glenn Heath Jr.
The film ultimately fails to treat history as anything but a string of melodramatic reference points for moody characters haplessly trying to find love.
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
It sounds like a throwback to an earlier, more traditional style of Israeli filmmaking but it instead provides a view of that country that's as satisfyingly eccentric and unexpected as anything we've seen.
How does a filmmaker tell a Holocaust story that hasn't been told before? The Matchmaker does it by weaving fable with realism, coming-of-age innocence with adult grief, and guilt with romanticism.
The Matchmaker is at heart an unexpectedly complex film about love, but also an examination of Israel in flux, a country with one foot in the past and another in the future – a weight that may never fully vacate Israeli shoulders.
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
This is a sweet, bittersweet comedy, well-executed if perhaps a little heavy on anecdotage. You know who might have made it in the old days? I kept thinking of Woody Allen. You don't know what you want. Woody knows what you want.
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