The Bentwich Syndrome

Gur Bentwich shot a fine comedy a couple of years ago, "Up the Wrong Tree," and it failed to receive quite as enthusiastic a reception as it deserved. It turns out that the Bentwich family has encountered similar karma over the generations-- talented people to whom recognition never came and stuck, and people who never found the outlet for their inner sense of worth. In this his subsequent film, Bentwich and a small family entourage go searching through the family history in Israel and in England. For anyone with a knowledge of Israeli history, the surprising connections that pop up are well worth the ninety-odd minutes although the attempt to lighten the film by light-hearted mockery of the family sometimes seems inappropriate and the presence of Bentwich's small, restless children is only occasionally used to good effect. What does help is a recurring use of Pythonesque animation and a developing sense that a family truly is an organism with a personality of its own rather than merely a succession of individuals.