Salsa Tel Aviv

There's nothing new about building a romantic comedy around someone increasingly conflicted about whether to go through with an anticipated marriage that is superficially advantageous or to blow it off in favor of a new and unconventional love. Israel has always appreciated this kind of comedy, generally involving a caricature of prosperous Ashkenazim. If it can somehow be made to involve disguises as well, and hiding behind doors and under blankets, and maybe a cute little child, so much the better. Salsa Tel Aviv starts out promising to hit all the buttons, with music and dancing thrown in. And there's nothing wrong with the music, but it's not highlighted and as others have commented, the dancing doesn't arrive in a quantity and quality that justifies its place in the title. And although the gags start out plentiful and exceptionally well executed, the movie evidently feels that having won our involvement by means of comedy, it can sell us some melodrama in a lengthy denouement. The problem is that the clichés turn more irritating when the comedy is missing. But that's only for a while at the end. Otherwise I think Salsa Tel Aviv is an enjoyable sentimental farce.