Unhealthy obsession dominates Yuval Hadadi's Israeli mid-life-crisis-themed 15 YEARS

Dani is obsessed with Yoav, his lover of the titular 15 YEARS, and so is Alma, Yoav's best friend since childhood. Yoav is obsessed, too. With himself. And TrustMovies' best guess is that Yuval Hadadi (shown below), the writer/director of this new Israeli film, is also obsessed -- with the middle-aged but extremely hot-looking actor, Oded Leopold, who plays Yoav and who bears a rather striking resemblance in face, body and age,  to the filmmaker himself.

Mr. Leopold, shown below and further below, appears in nearly every scene of this film and is also prominent in every single publicity still I could find for this movie. Thankfully, he's a decent enough actor and is a consistent pleasure to look at, clothed or nude, throughout.

Because of all this, one might be tempted to imagine that 15 Years is possibly auto-biographical, but since I know nothing about Mr. Hadadi, I'll bring the subject up then leave it alone and concentrate on the movie itself.

15 Years is worth seeing for its extremely attractive cast, its look at haut-bourgeois gay life in Tel Aviv, and its often quite beautiful visuals: There's one composition featuring a plate of green apples and bright oranges that you'll want to immediately capture on canvas (its the image seen to the right of the screen through a window, not the later, less interesting image where the plate is centered). The expert, often gorgeous cinematography here is via Yaniv Linton.

The movie's plot, such as it is, concerns the sudden announcement regarding the pregnancy of Alma (Rute Asarsai, below, left) and how this affects the relationship between Dani, who might want a child of his own, and Yoav, who definitely does not. The idea of becoming a parent unleashes all sorts of negativity in Yoav.

Along the way we learn -- via a dying father whom Yoav does not want to visit and a scrapbook/wall of photographs -- about this fellow's problematic childhood. While no details are offered, we are meant to conclude that "family" is not a particularly positive part of Yoav's history. And this is the film's major problem: No details are offered about much of anything.

Late in the game Dani (Udi Persi, below, right) has an angry speech in which he lets Yoav know that their relationship has been mostly bad -- for Dani, at least. But we've seen little of this. Likewise, the bond between Alma and Yoav must be taken on faith. The performance are as good as they can be, given that character-creation does not appear an important part of the filmmaker's plan. The movie simply sets out its characters and situations and then does not go deep enough.

There are a couple of good sex scenes along the way, one of which -- simultaneously hot and creepy -- brings to the fore Yoav's capability for dominance and pain, even as his sex object seem to revel in the possibility of his own demise.

For all of the filmmaker's obsessing over Yoav, this too-loosely-drawn character seems far too narcissistic and egotistical to be worth this much attention (from the other characters or from us viewers) -- despite Mr. Leopold's enormous sexual charisma, which is on view consistently.

The film's most intelligent and upbeat character, a possible love interest for Dani (played with a graceful charm by Tamir Ginsberg), gives the movie a much-needed lift, but then we're back again with Yoav and his dire, dour problems. Sorry, but obsessions -- unless they're handled with the kind of skill Hitchcock could manage -- are more often than not difficult for an audience to fully share.

From Breaking Glass Pictures, in Hebrew with English subtitles and running 89 minutes, 15 Years hits DVD and VOD this coming Tuesday, April 28 -- for purchase and/or rental.

DVDebut: Obssesion has its day in Sophie Laloy's 2009 endeavor, YOU WILL BE MINE

According to the IMDB, French film worker Sophie Laloy (shown below) has labored mostly in cinema sound and has directed and co-written but a single full-length film. If and when you view that movie -- YOU WILL BE MINE -- you may understand just why. Ms Laloy's original title in French, Je te mangerais, translates as "I would eat you," and this pretty much describes the obsessive and utterly possessive feelings of one of our protagonists for the other. God knows, obsession has been the theme of a number of excellent movies, from Visconti's early work to Vertigo. But thanks to the nitwit behavior on view, together with some ridiculous plot twists, this film comes nowhere close to joining those ranks.

Fortunately, the film offers some pleasant distractions that just might make it worth your time. Chief among these is Isild Le Besco, (shown above and below), that actress of exotic blond beauty who tends to add interest to anything in which she appears. Here she plays the villainess role to that of co-star Judith Davis' turn as would-be heroine, though neither character is completely what she may initially seem.

This good/evil combination may be the filmmaker's point -- along with the difficulties of accepting one's own lesbian tendencies, given society's majority-rule, continuing stigma of same sex love. If so, Ms Laloy did not find a way to bring all this to remotely believable life, given the over-the-top behavior.

The film was made in 2008 and first released in France in 2009. While attitudes have changed some over the past decade, human behavior remains fairly consistent, and what we see in this movie doesn't pass muster. When the worst possible decision are made, over and over again, the viewer's suspension of disbelief goes into overdrive and finally collapses.

The plot offers up Ms Davis, above and below, as a talented student of classical piano who has the chance to study at a major academy. Due to her family's finances, she must move into the apartment of the daughter of  family friend, a medical student played by Ms Le Besco.

Possessiveness and libido come to the fore almost immediately and grow ever stronger as the movie progresses, turning itself, along with its characters, inside out in the process. Supporting performers includes Edith Scob as a helpful teacher at the academy and Johan Libérau (below, right) as Davis' would-be boyfriend. M. Libérau's copious endowment is given its own impressive full-frontal scene.

For those so inclined, that may be the highlight of the movie. Otherwise, it's a long slough through passion resisted and embraced, love and hate, and nonsensical actions on the road to ruin. Which young woman comes out ahead, and why, may surprise you. Or not.

From Film Movement (though at this time it can be found nowhere on this distributor's web site) and running 100 minutes, the movie finally hits DVD and digital this coming Tuesday, July 24 -- for purchase or rental. If you want to view this one, your best bet is probably via Amazon Prime.

Sexual harassment squared in Sharad Kant Patel's genre jumper, SOMEBODY'S DARLING

A very interesting, often impressive blend of frat house misbehavior, feminist leanings, male prerogative, sexual harassment and the supernatural, SOMEBODY'S DARLING, the first full-length narrative film from Sharad Kant Patel, proves a surprisingly artful concoction -- a movie that hits several of today's hot-button issues head on, even as it successfully morphs into something quite creepy and otherworldly.

Mr. Patel, shown below, is mashing at least two major genres here, and doing this in such a way that be gives both their due, while withholding from us as long as possible the specifics that will eventually enfold one genre, the obsessive love story, into the other -- which is something else indeed.

Before TrustMovies does any over-praising, he must admit that the movie, though only 80 minutes, is still a bit too repetitive for its own good. Yet within those 80 minutes, Patel does such an interesting job of leading and misleading us, dropping hints and clues with skill and panache, that despite the film's refusal to give up its secrets much prior to the finale, he keeps us hanging on. In addition to the screenwriting and direction, our filmmaker is also responsible for the editing, visual effects, some of the music and sound design, and even the color grading and the inventive title sequence. Pretty much top to bottom, this is Patel's baby.

His story of a particular frat house at Williamsburg University (sounds real enough but isn't) and what these bad boys get up to with the girls on campus is typically nasty and unpleasant. But one of the guys, Christian, the frat house President, seems both better and worse than the others. When he becomes smitten with a young lady named Sarah, who prefers to keep her distance from the likes of these frat boys, all the usual bets are off.

As played by Paul Galvan (above, left) and Jessa Settle (above, right) these two characters easily hold the screen, thanks to their talent, looks and charisma, and to Mr. Patel's having given them plenty to do and say that keeps us glued. This is a love story of sorts, and exactly how and why these two feel the way they do is unveiled to us slowly and artfully.

How the filmmaker handles everything from simple (or not so) storytelling to sex, love and past lives is done with enough style and subtlety to impress without appearing pretentious. This is a feat of sorts. And he has also cast his smaller roles well, with an eye to making his young women pretty and slightly vapid and his young men -- for instance, Matt Tramel, below -- pretty and slightly bizarre. It works.

His finale is a shocker that makes exquisite sense. It also makes us think back to what we've seen earlier and how we've misread certain events that now look so different, appalling instead of frat-boy appealing, with the stakes so much higher than we had first imagined.

And yet, ah, what might have been! Somebody's Darling is indeed a love story, but as with almost all obsessive ones, it proves very, very dark.

After a successful festival run, the movie hit VOD -- via iTunes, Amazon and elsewhere -- on December 1, for rental and purchase. It's worth a watch.

In LITERALLY, RIGHT BEFORE AARON, Ryan Eggold offers up a smart, off-the-wall rom-com

Slightly psychotic, as is its very troubled hero (played by Justin Long with finesse, humor and enough believability to win us over), LITERALLY, RIGHT BEFORE ARRON proves an unusual mix of movies that include everything from My Best Friend's Wedding to just about any and every they're-going-to-get-married movie you'll have so far seen. And yet it still manages to seem surprisingly original, if somewhat problematic. The work of actor, Ryan Eggold (shown below, who with this, his first full-length film, has written, directed, edited and composed), the film tracks the coming apart of a young man named Adam, from the time he learns of his ex's impending wedding until the event itself -- in which he plays, well... an unexpectedly major role.

What Mr. Eggold has done here is explore -- at length, in some depth and mostly humorously -- a man's growing and non-stop obsession with a love relationship that, although ended, has not at all gone away. Mr. Long (shown below as the ex who came "literally, right before Aaron," as another character helpfully points out) gives one of his best performances out of many very good ones, as he takes that ball of obsession and runs with it, scoring touchdown after touchdown, even if these are all, in the end, against his own team. Via flashback and fantasy, as well as quite real-if-bizarre situations and supporting characters, the filmmaker gives us this man's about-to-implode life -- work life, love life, family life and more -- as he begins and then continues his sad but pretty funny descent.

Highlights here include a "proposal" scene that is certainly among the oddest ever, with results that will leave your mouth, as it does that of the recipient, hanging open, right through to a wedding reception that is one for the books. Along the way we meet a number of supporting characters, all of whom exist to keep Adam on track, from which, of course, he consistently derails.

Even that would-be love of his life (played by Cobie Smulders, above right) seems to come to life only through Adam's eyes. The groom, too (a hot, hirsute Ryan Hansen, above left) exists more as the antagonist-to-be-toppled than a full-bodied character. But all this is by intention, I suspect, and much of it, but not all, works to the film's advantage. What is missing, is any sense of who this Adam character was prior to his knowledge of his great love's impending marriage.

Clearly he had some major problems, or the earlier pairing would have remained in place. But could he have always been such a desperate jerk? Probably not, but that's what we see here, so we'll just have to take the rest on faith. Among the supporting cast are John Cho (above, right) as Adam's best friend, Kristen Schaal (below, left) as his very bizarre "wedding date," Lea Thompson (shown at bottom) as his mom (looking young enough here to be his sister), and Dana Delany as the bride's mom -- who in a particularly telling scene, intimates that she preferred Adam's Mr Fuck-Up to Aaron's Mr. Perfect.

If you approach Literally, Right Before Aaron with expectations of oddity rather than mainstream romantic comedy, I suspect you'll have a pretty good time. At the very least, you'll get a step-by-step lesson on what not to do so far as your ex -- along with just about everybody else -- is concerned.

From Screen Media Films and running 103 minutes, the movie opens theatrically in a limited run this Friday, September 29 -- in New York City (at the Village East Cinema), Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Monica Film Center) and in Arizona (at the Harkins Shea 14 in Scottsdale) plus another dozen cities over the weeks to come. Click here to see all currently scheduled venues.

If you don't live near any of the current venues, relax: The movie will simultaneously hit VOD this Friday, as well.

David Bezmozgis' NATASHA explores the Russian emigrant community in Canada

Beginning with some promise, as we view a family of Russian emigrants in Toronto and soon learn that one of the family, an "uncle" with pretty consistent marital problems due to some rather bad choices, is once again about to embark on matrimony, NATASHA -- the 2015 film from Canadian writer (of Latvian birth) David Bezmozgis -- soon concerns itself with the title character, the daughter of that uncle's new wife, and her budding relationship with Mark, the teenage son of one branch of this family. Mark's mother encourages her son to introduce little Natasha, unhappy and estranged from her own mom, to her new city.

That introduction soon includes sex, lies and teenage obsession, the latter on the part of poor Mark, who turns out to be the perfect mark for the wiles of this budding Russian trollop. Mr. Bezmozgis, shown at left, is said to be an acclaimed writer in his native land, but on the basis of this movie, an acclaimed filmmaker he ain't. Natasha is as tiresome, trashy and obvious as its non-heroine, with just about enough content to fill a half-hour television show.
Unfortunately, the film lasts 96 minutes.

It also offers up an ending that simply stops dead -- exactly at the point where we finally have a bit of interest in "what happens next," the preceding portion having been more than apparent and utterly predictable.

Performances are perfectly OK, befitting the material to a tee, with Alex Ozerov (above) making a hale, hearty and hot-looking teen with those typically raging hormones, and Sasha K. Gordon (below) providing a blandly non-expressive face in order to make us understand how coolly deceptive our little girl really is.

Other family members fare better and are more interesting, but there is finally no getting around just how banal and obvious is Bezmozgis' message. The Eastern Europe emigrant experience in the West is, of course, an often fraught and difficult one, but I find it odd that My Father's Guests, a French film by Anne Le Ny that you can stream via Netflix -- a comedy no less -- offers a much more nuanced, interesting and even believable look at an emigration-for-marriage situation than does this supposedly "dramatic" movie.

While we get a bit of family conversation regarding Israel, politics and the Jewish experience during the course of Natasha, the movie's main goal seems closer to titillation than anything else. This tiresome exercise, from Menemsha Films, opens tomorrow, Friday, April 28, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema. Further playdates? Nothing appears to be on the agenda as yet.

However, Mr. Bezmozgis and the film's two young stars will make personal appearances over this coming weekend at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema. Click here or here to see the appearance schedule.

Mélanie Laurent's beautifully-acted BREATHE creates its own special, unsettling genre

TrustMovies won't attempt to define what the new and special genre mentioned in the headline above actually is, for fear of unveiling a spoiler en route. Best to simply say that this new film begins as one thing and ends as quite another, with each step along the way providing a believable and enjoyable experience. BREATHE does not so much jump genres as turn into its own, sui-generis example. In the annals of oh-my-god-how-did-we-get-here? stories, this one is a keeper: psychologically, emotionally and intellectually sound.

Mélanie Laurent (shown at right) -- the film's director and co-adapter (with Julien Lamborschini) of the novel by Anne-Sophie Brasme -- is best known as an international actress of some repute (Enemy, Inglorious Basterds and Now You See Me, plus, in her home country, a couple dozen good French films). Breathe is her second full-length feature as writer/director (her first, The Adopted, was not released over here), and by any standard, it's a good one. Tracking the life of a very pretty, intelligent, somewhat shy and unformed high-school girl, the movie stays close to the kind of reality with which most of us can identify, having lived through something at least vaguely similar while growing up.

Parental problems, peer relationships, what to do about sex, and then, finally, the kind of attraction to another person that can become obsessive -- all these are threaded throughout Ms Laurent's narrative easily and gracefully, and the performances the filmmaker has drawn from her excellent cast are spectacularly good without a bit of grandstanding on the actors' part.

In the lead role of Charlie, the beautiful Joséphine Japy (two photos above) gives the kind of fluid, moment-to-moment performance that allows us to see the inner and outer young woman equally well. Matching Ms Japy is her co-star, Lou de Laâge (above, left), who, as the new student Sarah, creates a figure of sophistication, sex appeal, mystery and occasional vulnerability and nastiness that begins to haunt us just as she does Charlie.

The more we learn about Sarah, in fact, the more problematic she becomes and the more we fear for Charlie. What finally happens may be unjustifiable on some level, but it is completely understandable on another. The movie becomes a kind of morality tale of and for youth: Your actions have consequences, children, and some of these will be unintended and -- unfortunately -- permanent.

The rest of the fine cast are up-to-snuff, too: Ms Laurent is able to draw specific and terrific moments from her entire ensemble, with the versatile and glowing Isabelle Carré especially commendable as Charlie's emotionally-abused but all-to-wiling-to-go-there mother.

The French -- ever philosophic and often deliberately contrary -- are particularly good at serving up stories that at first glance look typical, even run-of-the-mill. Then, by broadening and deepening them via characterizations and behavior that are anything but run-of-the-mill, they hook us and take us places we might never choose to go.  Breathe is one of the better examples of this. Miss it at your peril.

From Film Movement and running a succinct 91 minutes, Ms Laurent's movie opens this Friday September 11, in New York City at the IFC Center and on Friday, September 18, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal. To view all currently scheduled playdates, click here and scroll down.

Phallophilia on-screen again in Jonah Bekhor and Zach Math's documentary, THE FINAL MEMBER

Making a just-about perfect double bill with Unhung Hero, the new documentary THE FINAL MEMBER breaks further ground concerning the male-of-the-species' penis obsession. The three men we meet here seem obsessed something fierce with the male member -- an activity I admit that I myself have been rather interested in down the decades, as are, I suspect, many gay and bi-sexual men. But whatever interest we may have with cocks and balls surely pales next to that of these three guys.

The two filmmakers who directed the doc -- Jonah Bekhor and Zach Math (shown above, with Mr. Math on the left) -- are Canadians who, when they first heard about and then followed up on this story of the world's first penis museum, found in Iceland, actually relocated to that tiny country in order to facilitate their film-making. It's a bit difficult to imagine that they ended up with what they expected from their endeavors, going in. But who knows? Perhaps they were aware from the upshot how obsessed all the parties actually were.

Those parties would include the man, Sigurður Hjartarson (above), who put together the penile venue -- the Icelandic Phallological Museum, the world's only one devoted exclusively to the penis -- that holds a sample member from so many of the world's mammal species and displays them all. All, that is, except for the penis of one of us homo sapiens. To that end, the museum's founder, now in his 70s, is literally beating the bushes to find a possible donor for the cause.

Which brings us to the other two obsessive gentlemen: Páll Arason (above), an ex-adventurer/cocksman said to have had his way with more Icelandic (and maybe other nationalities) women than any other Icelandic man. Arason has agreed to donate his member to the museum upon his death. Except that, even in the best of days, his penis measured but five inches. Now that he is in his dotage, it is shrinking (as all of ours seem to, eventually), and so may not measure up to standard.

The movie takes a funny side trip here into penis-size folklore, and we hear the tale of a woman who insisted that Iceland come up with a minimum acceptable penis size because, as you can see from the drawing above, her hubby simply did not measure up.

Then our curator hears from a man in America, Tom Mitchell, who is also interested in donating his penis to the museum. It's a big one: seven inches and very thick. Tom calls his cock Elmo, and it is clearly his most prized possession. So prized that he begins setting rules and gilding the lily, as it were. (Ever seen a cock with a red, white and blue tattoo on its head? You will.)

All this is, on one level, crazy as hell. But as these are human beings, their desires and craziness are funny and sad and faintly ridiculous. Even though someone in this movie (Hjartarson maybe?) early on notes that, regarding the penis, "Anything that mustn't be talked about must be talked about." Fair enough, but obsession or no, one can't help but ask, Is this the measure of a man?  For Arason and especially for Mitchell, I guess the answer is yes.

Does Hjartarson get his final member? Surprise ensues and the suspense builds, and eventually we learn the outcome. Meanwhile, don't miss the comic-book adventures of Elmo, shown during the end credits. These are a hoot, and for the most part, so is this movie.

From Drafthouse Films and running a thankfully short 72 minutes, The Final Member opens around the country this Friday, April 18 -- in Austin, Dallas, Houston, New York, Phoenix, Seattle and Yonkers, with more cities to follow in the weeks to come. To see all currently scheduled playdates, click here and scroll down.