'The Ring' ('HaTabat' - 2024), written by Adir Miller and directed by him together with Doron and Yoav Paz, is a film that starts from some excellent premises. It is based on a true story that happened during the Holocaust in the family of Adir Miller (actor, stand-up comedian, television star, a very popular personality in Israel). It combines several interesting themes (perhaps a little too many) - the memory of the Holocaust and the struggle with forgetting, relationships between generations, the acceptance of gay relationships and marriages in traditional families. It is an auteur film, a personal film. It is clear that the author was emotionally involved and the movie manages to convey emotion to the viewers at many moments. Perhaps it is precisely this excess of emotion that is damaging. Or the fact that an authentic story was packed between so many less significant secondary plots.
Arnon, the hero of the film, is a kind of a walking failure. He was once a star prosecutor, but his passion for gambling (which is illegal in Israel) had ruined his career. He had become religious, perhaps to atone for his sins, and his strict attitude towards his daughter, Alma, with whose lesbian relationship and future marriage he cannot reconcile, completely distanced him from her. The pole of the family is Violetta, Arnon's mother and Alma's grandmother. She is a Holocaust survivor who owed her life to an incident in 1944, the year the Jews were deported from Hungary. At that time, she bribed a Hungarian fascist soldier with her only possession, a ring that reminded her of a dear girlfriend, so that he would spare their lives - hers and of the baby in her arms, who would become Arnon. When grandmother Violetta falls seriously ill, Arnon and Alma will set off on a journey to Hungary in search of the ring, in the hope that its magical powers, which had once saved Violetta's life, will help a second time. What follows is a journey of confrontation with the past, but also with the realities of Europe in 2001, following the traces of history but also in the sense of knowledge and reconciliation between the father and daughter separated for many years.
I think that the script had a few problems. Arnon's character is built around Adir Miller, and what fits the profile of the popular actor, including the jokes thrown every other minute, is not exactly what the hero in the film tries to convey. The relationship between father and daughter in particular deserved a separate film. Here it seemed reduced to clichés. That part of the story that is filmed in Hungary also seemed simplistic to me. The characters there are reduced to stereotypes - either very negative or very positive. The reality is more complex and nuanced. Here, perhaps the collaboration of local screenwriters and directors would have been appropriate. Adir Miller does what we, Israeli viewers, know best. The passing of the torch at the end of the film is unconvincing. The two actresses, on the other hand, perform complex, sensitive, moving roles. Tikva (Tiki) Dayan is an experienced actress and the role of Violetta, a Holocaust survivor who dedicates her old days to the fight against forgetting, will remain one of the best of her career. Joy Rieger, who plays Alma, confirms that she is one of the best young actresses in Israeli cinema with a role that is powerful and representative for her generation. The film intents to have an impact. Let's see how audiences will respond. It will certainly be successfully screened on the circuit of film festivals with Jewish themes and at Holocaust commemorations. Hopefully, not only on such occasions. I felt that the melodrama accompanied by sweet music overwhelms the drama too often, the clichés and predictable scenes are too frequent, and the side themes add nothing to the main message. I was left with the impression that the documentary about the true story that inspired the film would have been more interesting.
