The Human Resources Manager (2010)

A tragi-comedy centered on the HR manager of Israel's largest industrial bakery, who sets out to save the reputation of his business and prevent the publication of a defamatory article.

Director:

Eran Riklis

Writers:

Abraham B. Jehoshua (novel), Noah Stollman (screenplay)

Stars:

Mark Ivanir, Noah Silver, Reymond Amsalem

8 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Mark Ivanir	...	the Human Resources Manager
Noah Silver	...	The Boy
Reymond Amsalem	...	The Divorcee
Gila Almagor	...	Widow
Rosina Kambus	...	The Israeli Consul
Guri Alfi	...	Weasel
Irina Petrescu	...	The Grandmother
Julian Negulesco	...	The Vice Consul
Bogdan E. Stanoevitch	...	The Ex-Husband
Papil Panduru	...	The Driver
Danna Semo	...	The Secretary
Yigal Sade
Ofir Weil	...	The Morgue Worker
Sylwia Drori	...	The Nun
Roni Koren	...	The Daughter

Storyline

A tragi-comedy centered on the HR manager of Israel's largest industrial bakery, who sets out to save the reputation of his business and prevent the publication of a defamatory article.

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

Israel Germany France Romania

Language:

Hebrew English Romanian French

Release Date:

4 March 2011 (USA)

Also Known As:

Le voyage du directeur des ressources humaines

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$13,467 (USA) (11 March 2011)

Gross:

$63,709 (USA) (8 July 2011)

Company Credits

Production Co:

2-Team Productions, Pallas Film, Libra Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

103 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Connections

Referenced in Estrenos Críticos: El episodio que va a contrarreloj (2011)

User Reviews

A Nicely Balanced Movie

The title Human Resource Manager of this movie has a task thrust upon him, completely unforeseen and probably not in his or any other HR Manager's job description. A female employee of his company, the largest bread bakery in Jerusalem, is killed in a terrorist attack, under circumstances which bring an embarrassing public relations nightmare to the company. The deceased woman was a recent immigrant from Romania (the actors who play her relatives speak Romanian, but the country is never actually named, only identified as a former communist country in Eastern Europe), and the owner of the bakery sends the HR Manager to escort the body to her homeland. Tagging along on the journey is the same muckraking photojournalist (known to the audience as "The Weasel") who brought the bad PR upon the bakery in the first place.

This movie could have taken any of a number of different tracks without any change in the plot line, in which the HRM encounters several bureaucratic or emotional obstacles upon arriving in Romania and meeting with local officials, the Israeli consul, and the teenage son and ex-husband of the deceased, all the while hoping to make this a short trip to get home in time to chaperone a school trip for his own neglected teenage daughter, and clashing with "The Weasel".

Had this been an American movie, I have could easily pictured it done as a "road/buddy" comedy, a rather slippery slope down which this movie could have descended to a bonehead movie a la A WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S.

At the other end of the spectrum, I did in fact see this movie as part of the Film Movement foreign film subscription series shown at a public library. I'm rather new to that series, and this movie was the third I'd seen. The first two were totally depressing: ILLEGAL, which showed the suffering of a Russian woman illegally in Belgium and undergoing deportation and separation from her teenage son, and THE COLOR OF THE MOUNTAIN, showing the takeover of a small Colombian village by narco-terrorists, and its impact on the children, their families and their school. This movie had the potential of going down that gloomy path as well.

Instead, this was the first one in the series where I actually felt good at the end. The poignancy and pathos of the HRM dealing with the deceased's relatives is well offset by the adventurous challenges he faces getting the deceased to her final resting place, and by the comedic sparring between him and the journalist.

This movie was very nicely balanced. For my own personal tastes, I might have liked it a little better if there had been a touch more comedy, one or two more laugh out loud moments, but if the production crew were wary of the slippery slope to A WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S, I have no quarrel with that call. It's not quite a perfect movie for me, but nearly so.