I saw this film in a group of 40-50 people, some of whom seemed to find meaning in it. I thought it was dreadfully boring and might have walked out, which I almost never do, if I hadn't brought three people along with me. Frankly, I found the film as shallow as a mirror, and the reactions of my fellow viewers appeared to me to be reflections of themselves rather than of anything contained in the film. Although several of the actors in this film do a nice job -- particularly Keren Mor as a sexually frustrated and unhappy wife and Yossi Pollak as the father of Simcha (i.e., Joy), played by Sigalit Fuchs -- the plot is neither credible nor interesting. One of the people in the audience had the nerve to compare "Joy" to "Annie Hall" and the director, Julie Shies, to Woody Allen. But one needs a microscope to uncover the comic element in "Joy" and Julie Shies's sensibility is similar to Woody Allen's only because they are both Jewish. The film is framed around Yom Kippur and the motif of "return" (minus repentance). I doubt that it will attract much of an audience in the U.S. and, if it does, I would wager that more film-goers will subscribe to my judgment than to that of those who seem willing to give it a higher grade simply because it comes from Israel. I've seen a lot of Israeli films and this is easily the worst.
