Hearat Shulayim 2011

A.O. Scott, New York Times: A piercing satire, a poignant family drama and an investigation of the competing claims of honesty, loyalty, ambition and love. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Director Joseph Cedar somehow makes all of this enormously entertaining. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: "Footnote" does function as a character study, an exceptionally rich one. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: At times, the film seems to turn into a microfiche machine, with the story's sections divided by frames thumping past us as if propelled by a researcher, eyes scanning. Read more

Alison Willmore, AV Club: Cedar breaks up these father-son dynamics with visual flourishes, including nods to old-school slideshows, or footnotes about the characters thrown out onscreen. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Writer and director Cedar does a great job of ratcheting up the tension by filtering the story through a simmering family rivalry. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: The film was a nominee for this year's foreign-language Oscar, and Cedar has a real grasp of how to create conflict and generate tension. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Writer-director Joseph Cedar's understanding of the many levers of academic politics helps him inject a little steel into the movie; but it's eventually overcome by the mushy father-son drama. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: I've seen the film twice, gladly, and I can't wait to see what Cedar comes up with next. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Footnote is at its best when it gets into the cutthroat dynamics of academic competition, which are both horrifying and amusing. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: It speaks to anyone who's been on either end of a grudge or family antagonism. And it saves its best for those who have witnessed clusters of the best and brightest descend to the level of grade school kids on the playground. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Israeli writer-director Joseph Cedar's tale of two Talmudic scholars set in present-day Jerusalem, while not exactly side-splitting, is quietly riotous. And, yes, the guffaws are bittersweet. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: "Footnote" deals with ambition, isolation, the dangers of too much success and the inevitable gap between generations. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Footnote is itself a perfect little piece of Talmud, full of text, commentary, and colorful argument. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: This is brainy, bravura filmmaking of the highest level, a motion picture that is as difficult to pigeonhole as it is a pleasure to enjoy. Read more

Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic: At the last... Footnote is so intelligently and deftly made that we are glad it exists. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: A droll, deadpan satire of the professional contempt and personal rancor that breeds in any narrow field. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: Footnote requires little knowledge of Judaism and its texts. Rather, it's about the complications of love, guilt, and rage. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: Unfortunately, when Cedar forges his fine-grained observations into a plot, the action turns broad, thin, and overwrought, and his images lose their tensile strength. Read more

Mark Jenkins, NPR: The movie is not a story but a text, and Cedar is its playfully intrusive interpreter. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: A film this intimate must be finely tuned, and Cedar's screenplay is acutely observant about academia, familial dynamics and life in contemporary Jerusalem. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: The film is more about questions than answers. But sometimes the questions are the point. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Footnote is a film about the nature of truth, about sacrifice, hubris, hypocrisy. It's nothing short of brilliant. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: In fact, it's one of the smartest and most merciless comedies to come along in a while. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Both actors are tremendous: Bar Aba has the air of a near-boiling teakettle or an unexploded bomb, while Ashkenazi's Uriel looks on with a mixture of bafflement, exhaustion and reluctant affection. Read more

Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle: Its energy and eccentricity assert themselves in funky graphics, imaginative camerawork and everyday moments of awkwardness and absurdity. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Cedar mines dark humor from the humiliations of identity checks and pecking orders. Read more

Jon Frosch, The Atlantic: The film pulls off an impressive balancing act: It's bitter though not cruel, satirical without veering toward obviousness, deeply moving but never maudlin. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: It's a wryly observed little picture that plays like an anecdote deliberately separated from some larger text that's hinted at yet never fully divulged. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: A father-son academic rivalry provides fodder for this caustic comedy set in the Talmud Department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: This material could, with just a few edits, be a serious and downbeat drama. But it's Cedar's knowing satire of academic politics (aided greatly by the sprightly and circus-like score by Amit Poznansky) that keeps the proceedings pungently bubbly. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Writer/director Joseph Cedar is wise to the comedy of frustration and alert to the tragedy of hubris. Read more

Jay Weissberg, Variety: Cedar goes to great lengths -- indeed, too great -- to turn editing and music into the driving force behind the pic's liveliness. Read more

Karina Longworth, Village Voice: Something between a comedy of everyday absurdity and a family tragedy pushed into the realm of the hyper-real, Footnote uses its characters' differing relationships to authenticity as the basis for an enigmatic riff on representation. Read more

Stephanie Merry, Washington Post: It's not easy to make Eliezer a sympathetic character, yet Bar-Aba's demonstration of fleeting vulnerability awakens inevitable, if equally brief, compassion. Read more