Noodle (2007)

Director:

Ayelet Menahemi

Writers:

Shemi Zarhin (writer) and
Ayelet Menahemi (writer)

Release Date:

26 July 2007 (Israel)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

At thirty-seven, Miri is a twice-widowed, El Al flight attendant. Her well-regulated existence is suddenly...

Awards:

2 wins & 9 nominations

Cast

Mili Avital	...	Miri Calderone
BaoQi Chen	...	Noodle
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Alon Abutbul	...	Izzy Sason
Sinaya Ben-Dor	...	Ilana
Yiftach Klein	...	Mati Gueta
Daphna Shpigelman	...	Batya
Sarit Vino-Elad	...	Dafna
Anat Waxman	...	Gila Sason
Roni Yuria	...	Yaeli

Runtime:

South Korea:100 min | Israel:90 min

Country:

Israel

Language:

Hebrew | Mandarin

Color:

Color

Certification:

South Korea:All

Company:

Norma Productions

Movie Connections:

Features Knafayim Shvurot (2002)

A charming comedy-drama

I recently saw this at the 2008 Palm Springs International Film Festival where it was among the announced audience favorites at the end of the festival. It's a good story from Israeli director Ayelet Menahemi who co-wrote the screenplay along with Shemi Yarhin. It's a sweet little comedic drama about Miri (Mili Avital) who is a woman who is only in her late 30's but is already twice widowed. Mili works as a El Al flight attendant and lives with her sister Gila (Anat Waxman) who is having marriage problems with her husband Izzy (Alon Aboutboul). One day the apartment's Chinese housekeeper (Vicky Lyn) asks Miri if she can leave her six year old son (BoaQui Chen) for an hour and Miri agrees to watch him but the mother never returns. They can't communicate with the Chinese only speaking boy and they give him the nickname Noodle while they search for his mother and ultimately a way to reunite the mother and child through the help of Mati (Yiftach Klein) who is a family friend and former neighbor of Miri and Gila. The story is sometimes hard to believe but it's a good ride none the less and certainly a charming tale. Director Menahemi has had a very sporadic career in his 20 years as a director making only three documentaries, three narrative features and one short in all that time. With this, his third feature narrative, I would hope he is inspired enough by it's success to create more films. It won the Grand Jury Prize and Best Screenplay at the Montreal World Film Festival and I'm sure it's been a crowd pleaser at other festivals it's played besides Montral and Palm Springs. I would give this an 8.0 out of 10 and recommend it.