The Day After I'm Gone (2019)

A middle aged single father copes with his teenage daughter's wish to end her life.

Director:

Nimrod Eldar

Writer:

Nimrod Eldar

Stars:

Menashe Noy, Zohar Meidan, Alon Neuman

3 wins & 25 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Menashe Noy	...	Yoram
Zohar Meidan	...	Roni
Alon Neuman	...	Arie
Sarit Vino-Elad	...	Sivan
Sharon Hacohen	...	Mira
Claudia Dulitchi	...	Maesella
Evelin Kachulin	...	Police Woman
Miri Aloni	...	Aviva
Eli Muallem	...	Rami
Ben Kippris	...	Ben
Yahav Viner	...	Magician
Ziv Peleg	...	Ranger
Eran ben Zvi	...	Man
Eran Naim	...	Policeman
Maayan Eliasi	...	Police woman

Storyline

Yoram is a vet at a safari park in Tel Aviv. A single father, his job is to take care of the wildcats, perform operations on sick animals and make sure that people don't get out of their cars when they encounter a herd of rhinos. Yoram sees less and less of his teenage daughter, Roni. To her, their dark apartment is a prison she breaks free from more and more frequently, and for increasingly long periods. One night, a team of paramedics appears at their door. Users of an internet forum have alerted them to the fact that Roni has decided to take her own life. After her attempted suicide, the only way out for father and daughter seems to be a trip out of town and back to the family. Israeli director Nimrod Eldar's feature-length debut is a story about injured animals, injured people and an injured country. A deceptive silence unfolds in calm and concentrated images. But all is not well beneath the surface and ghosts from the past are reemerging. Gradually, more and more details come to ...

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Plot Keywords:

family relationships | father daughter relationship | road movie | 

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Genres:

Drama

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User Reviews

A sort of self-defeating beauty

Nimrod Eldar is credited as this movie's writer, director, sound designer, and editor. All four of them are very talented, but I wouldn't say they work perfectly together.

Eldar's script is a tense, naturalistic, well-acted family drama focused on a widower and his daughter. The father is a zoo veterinarian, and the first line of the movie is spoken by the unmistakable Yigal Horowitz, a real veterinarian who is famous for treating wild animals in a program in Israeli educational TV. His presence seems like a wink at the audience and generates an expectation of light-heartedness that the script certainly doesn't fulfill. Similarly, the man-mountain Eran Naim, playing a policeman, is sort of a distracting cross-over from the films of Yaron Shani, where he's repeatedly played essentially the same role.

The patient at the zoo is a beautiful leopard. Eldar the director also makes a point of presenting a beautiiful amusement-park ride and some beautiful shots of the Dead Sea area. There are even some facial close-ups that are notable for their artistry. But instead of reinforcing the drama or providing welcome relief from the tension, these visuals call attention to themselves at the expense of audience involvement. The same might be said for some of the long pauses that Eldar the editor has inserted, while Eldar the sound designer has wisely eschewed background music almost entirely but occasionally overdone the sound effects.

I certainly recommend the movie, but overall, it could be that Eldar the director didn't sufficiently trust Eldar the screenwriter and tried to load more ornamentation onto the script than it would bear. It certainly is a bleak story, most of the time, but a director's got to play the hand he's been dealt, even if the game is solitaire.

Details

Country:

Israel France

Language:

Hebrew

Release Date:

13 February 2020 (Israel)

Also Known As:

The Day After I'm Gone

Filming Locations:

Tel Aviv, Israel

Company Credits

Production Co:

Spiro Films, Cinema Group, United King Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

98 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital (5.1 surround)

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.39 : 1