Eytan Fox's Israeli mainstream musical treat, CUPCAKES, hits the USA. Prepare to smile.

Something new and decidedly delightful from Eytan Fox -- the Israeli moviemaker who has given us Yossi & Jagger, Walk on Water, The Bubble and more -- CUPCAKES is a musical comedy about a lot of things, authenticity chief among them. Is Mr. Fox's movie itself authentic? I think so, for it does not pretend to be any deeper than a sweet, mainstream-accessible tale of music, song, love and work amongst an ensemble of a half-dozen lead characters and their friends, lovers and co-workers.

The movie succeeds quite beautifully in engaging our interest and then making good on its promise of enjoyment and fun. And Fox, shown above, has created a bouncy, colorful, array of characters and scenes that build inexorably (though not necessarily predictably) toward a terrific feel-good finale of music, romance, and yes, authenticity.

The story proceeds smartly and economically from the introduction, one by one, of all the characters, shown at their work -- school-teaching, baking (those titular cupcakes), lawyering, writing, singing, and assisting one of the country's leading political ministers. Very quickly, important events occur, as our baker (Anat, above) -- an older woman with a younger husband who suddenly splits -- spills out her grief to her friends.

On the spot our singer/songwriter comes up with a sweet and simple little ditty that the others join in creating and singing, in order to cheer up their sad companion. Very soon a song is born. This song is authentic, and so are the feelings that engendered it, but what happens to the song as it becomes better known is anything but. This situation makes up the meat of the movie (or maybe, considering our baker and her wares, I ought to say the batter of the film).

Culture, mores, "professionalism" -- along with the meat grinder through which everything musical must be processed these days -- rear their heads and create havoc for our simple little song, as well as for and to the various love stories, straight and gay, that engage our characters.

Filmed in Israel, and then -- surprise! -- in Paris, where we and our cast meet the ineffably French actor, comic and filmmaker Edouard Baer, who gives this already buoyant movie an extra lift, Cupcakes proves as sweet and sugary as can be. But we're talking authentic sugar -- none of that synthetic shit!

The cast could hardly be bettered: They're all attractive, energetic performers who nail their characters quickly and then allow us to go with them wherever they decide to travel. From left to right, above, are shown Dana Ivgy (lately of Zero Motivation), Yael Bar-Zohar, Anat Waxman, Keren Berger, Ofer Shechter and Efrat Dor.

In the fine supporting cast are stalwarts such as Lior Ashkenazi (above, left, with Ms Bar-Zohar), and Sarit Vino-Elad as that peripatetic minister.

Lasting but 92 minutes, the movie is as bright, funny, charming and economical as you could wish. And, yes, you'll get to hear that wonderful song again, this time done right. Best of all is the filmmaker's nod, at the finale, to that fine French film The Baker's Wife. Here, however -- hooray for feminism -- you might better call it The Baker's Husband.

Cupcakes, via Strand Releasing, opens this Friday, March 27, in New York City at the Quad Cinema, and the following week in Los Angeles on April 3 at Laemmle's Music Hall 3.

Eytan Fox's YOSSI opens, picking up a decade later from his Yossi & Jagger

Remember Yossi & Jagger? That sweet, short, sad Israeli movie of a decade ago told the tale of two young men in the Israeli army who fall in love and con-summate their love, briefly, before one of them is killed. Ten years later, the film's director Eytan Fox (shown below) -- who's gone on to make two other good films (Walk on Water and The Bubble) -- comes back to his earlier creation, this time written by Itay Segal (the earlier film's screenplay was by Avner Bernheimer). The result, YOSSI, is in some ways his best work.

In earlier films, Fox has tried (with surprising success, it must be said) to pack in a ton of ideas, events, situations and characters. While this made the movies bracing and exciting, it also made maybe a little too much room for melodrama and coincidence. In this latest film, Fox sticks most heavily to character, placing it above even situation, thus letting the man Yossi -- and the wonderful actor who plays him, Ohad Knoller (shown below) -- nail the movie. And nail it Knoller does.

On screen at almost every moment, and certainly in every scene, this Teddy Bear of a man is so constrained by his "closeted" self that he has trouble connecting with what he most desires. This gives Yossi, the man and the movie, enormous feeling, irony and weight (yes, our guy is a little chubby, but only to the point that he makes for a really good, soft cuddle).

The movie starts out as a character study (and pretty much stays there), as our Yossi, now a successful physician, tries a little internet dating but comes up against the reality of a funny, nasty and jolting "gentleman" (below) who gives our hero a dose of unpleasant reality.

Along the way Fox morphs his movie into a kind of road trip during which Yossi is tested by himself and by others as he slowly, finally comes out of his shell. Just a bit. The filmmaker is happy not to tie up every loose end, and so, while we can imagine we've got a "happy ending," a moment or two later, we realize that this is just the beginning of what might or might not be, down the road, some kind of major change.

The film is full of smart touches and excellent performances -- espe-cially from Israeli star Lior Ashkenazi (shown above, left), as a physician friend of Yossi, super macho, who treats the hospital's beverage machine like your typical Palestinian -- "All they understand is force!" -- while he whomps said machine into giving up a can of soda.

There's a strange, wonderful and fraught scene between Yossi and the parents of the late Jagger, and some smart funny interplay between our hero and a quartet of army boys (above) to whom he gives a lift in his car. One of them, Tom (the sweet and hot Oz Zehavi, shown below, right), will take a liking to Yossi, turning the remainder of the film into a charming, low-key "will she or won't she?" scenario, with the she now a he.

As I say, because filmmaker Fox chooses character and moment above the large themes and plot devices of his last two films, Yossi succeeds mightily in its miniature manner. The movie, from Strand Releasing and running 84 minutes, opens this Friday, January 25, in New York City at the Angelika Film Center and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center and in the Los Angeles area on February 8 at Laemmle's Town Center 5 and Playhouse 7.