Predicated on the spectacle of functionally depressed types stuck in mildly ridiculous situations, the Israeli ensemble comedy Jellyfish has an emotional resonance beyond its controlled slapstick and deadpan sight gags. A beautiful bride trapped in a toilet stall breaks her leg upon climbing out and is forced to relocate her honeymoon from a Caribbean dream beach to a Tel Aviv dump. A non-Hebrew-speaking, exceedingly homesick Filipina guest worker is hired to look after a particularly unpleasant old lady, who is herself longing for the attentions of her equally difficult grown daughter. A klutzy yet appealing waitress breaks up with her boyfriend and is briefly adopted by a mysterious, wide-eyed 5-year-old. These couples become estranged and reconciled in various ways and occasionally cross paths. Co-directed by the best-selling Israeli writer Etgar Keret and his wife, dramatist and director Shira Geffen, Jellyfish regards its essentially lonely characters with a gaze both tender and lethal. An Israeli movie with neither politics nor religion — and only one casual, if fraught, mention of the Holocaust — Jellyfish signals an underlying desire for normality that's as poignant and fantastic as Keret and Geffen's modest, shabby Tel Aviv settings.
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