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FILL THE VOID Send This Review to a Friend
The intricacies and heartbreaks that can occur in Orthodox Jewish life are dramatized in an especially involving Israeli film that takes place in Tel Aviv. Writer-director Rama Burshtein has imagined a situation fraught with hard choices that stem from tradition, which can be in sharp conflict with affairs of the heart.
Shira, a young woman played by Hadas Yaron, is engaged, but her marital plans are disrupted by tragedy when her older sister Esther, portrayed by Renana Raz, dies, leaving her husband Yochay (Yiftach Klein) a widower with their baby son. The machinations begin.
Yochay has his own plans involving a match abroad, where he would move with his child. This possibility unnerves the mother (Irit Sheleg) of Esther and Shira, who desperately wants to keep her grandson at hand, and she begins her maneuvering to find a solution. Why not make a match between Shira and the now free Yochay?
Consider what Shira faces. Not only it would mean the end to her engagement, but it would mean taking her sister’s place with her widowed husband. The pressure mounts. This isn’t a case of thrusting a woman into a marriage which someone she dislikes.
Yochay happens to be an amiable fellow.
What makes “Fill the Void” compelling is the way in which Burshtein explores the various angles, the traditions involved, the practice of seeking rabbinical advice and the various characters, their needs and desires. The story could easily descend into soap opera, but Burshtein elevates it to a drama that plays fairly with the various sides involved. Whether one has an affinity for the religion that guides this group of Orthodox believers or not, the human drama enhanced by convincing acting achieves a measure of universality. A Sony Pictures Classics release. Reviewed May 24, 2013.
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