Golda (2023)

Paying homage to a country’s great leader is certainly a worthy and noble undertaking, but, when it comes to director Guy Nattiv’s would-be tribute to Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (Helen Mirren), the film comes up far short of what it could have been. The film focuses on Meir’s handling of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when the nation was on the brink of collapse from “surprise” (though strongly anticipated) attacks by Egypt and Syria, largely as retribution for their territorial losses in the 1967 Six-Day War, with significant support from the Soviet Union. The picture presents a detailed by-the-numbers account of the conflict, including Meir’s involvement with her top military advisors and with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (Liev Schreiber). Granted, it’s important to understand this background to provide context for the stage on which this drama plays out. However, for a release called “Golda,” one would think that its focus would be on the title character, as a biographical sketch that just happens to be set during wartime. Instead, because of this, Meir is almost reduced to a supporting player in a much wider cast of characters playing out the specifics of the conflict (at least in the first half). There’s virtually no back story about the PM as an individual, providing little insight into who she is and how that impacts her approach to handling the combat. To its credit, the film improves in the second half, especially when it starts presenting Meir’s story from a somewhat more personal perspective. By that point, however, the filmmaker has already lost his audience for what this offering could and should have been. Viewers come away from this one knowing little more about the woman who was a national hero in a time of crisis than what they would likely find in history books and documentary films. In fairness, Mirren and Schreiber deliver fine performances, disappearing into their respective roles and making this production look better than it actually is. But that’s not saying much given what seems to be the genuinely sincere intent that was behind this release. Unlike Meir, this film simply doesn’t rise to the challenge, and that’s unfortunate considering who it is ultimately trying to honor. And, because of that, it should come as no surprise why this offering has ended up in the late summer stash of cinematic also-rans.

I suppose this might have been a little bit more interesting if I had known more about the 'Yom Kippur" war that threatened the still quite fledgling state of Israel. With Egypt and Syria massing huge numbers of troops and tanks on the borders, it falls to the Israeli prime minister Golda Meir (Dame Helen Mirren) to galvanise her hugely outnumbered population and to work with her legendary defence minster Moshe Dayan (Rami Heuberger) to stave off this overwhelming force long enough for her to convince American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (an almost unrecognisable Liev Schreiber) and his boss Richard Nixon to brave the threats from the Soviets and the Saudis and come to her aid. What's annoying about this film is the astonishing lack of substance to the thing. Much effort has gone into Dame Helen's prosthetics, however much of the rest it seems to repetitively follow her walking about from place to place - with her famous white shoes - whilst lighting and smoking a cigarette. We know she is ill, and we also see from her frequent visits for treatment that the adjacent mortuary is testifying to the increasing horror of this invasion. However there's virtually no detail as to who she is/was, how she got the job, how her intelligence was attained, how her skilful combination of diplomacy and courage all helped to save her nation from annihilation. It's all just presented in a second-rate documentary style that was as unconvincing as it was shallow and episodic. Sure, it illustrates well the perils of war - but, to be honest, it could be any war where one nation was up against a larger, more powerful, one. To do justice to this story and this woman, it needed greater focus and much more detail. This is nobody's finest work here, sorry.