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The new historical drama Golda follows the formula that made 2017’s Darkest Hour an Oscar-winning success. It dramatizes a key international wartime episode from the 20th century, and by narrowing the plot to a leader’s point of view, it gives a sense of the required grace under pressure. Whereas Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour focuses on Winston Churchill during the London Blitz, Golda director Guy Nattiv considers Golda Meir, the former Prime Minister of Israel, during 1973’s Yom Kippur War. Both Wright and Nattiv slather a beloved actor in make-up and prosthetics for the lead role, and both films feature breathless dialogue where generals provide minute-by-minute updates to the fighting abroad. In fact, you could probably watch them back-to-back and be surprised by how much they overlap.
But Nattiv has an additional challenge that Wright does not, and it has to do with politics. Nazi Germany is a reliable historical villain in a way that Egypt and Syria in the 1970s are not. Meir remains a controversial figure, to the point that a formal inquiry was conducted over her conduct. Nattiv and screenwriter Nicholas Martin adopt an unabashedly Zionist framework toward the drama, something that may not sit well with audiences who have complex views of Israel’s ongoing conflict with its Palestinian neighbors. Martin includes a brief introduction so we can better understand the stakes when Egypt crosses the Suez Canal, although that will be little solace to those who reject the film’s ideological premise.
Martin appears at least somewhat aware of this challenge, and finds two ways to sidestep it. He attempts to address the conflict in psychological and metaphorical terms, a gambit that allows Golda to unfold like a thriller, except Nattiv cannot help but add some overwrought messaging after the main conflict concludes. It is a kind of bait-and-switch, and overwrought imagery only dampens the “boots on the ground” realism that makes the lengthy middle section so compelling.
With a wig and plenty of prosthetic makeup, Helen Mirren plays Meir as a woman who quietly realizes she must meet the challenge of history. Most of Golda unfolds in anonymous-looking offices or basements, with Meir listening to reports from Israel’s top military leaders. She is keenly aware she is the only woman present, except for a stenographer, and yet commands respect through unwavering steadiness and a hawkish approach to the conflict. Martin and Nattiv do their best to keep track of all the troop movements, and when the military minutiae prove too challenging, they focus on Meir’s reaction to each new development. The most effective scenes involve Mirren as Meir listening to desperate Israeli soldiers during deadly skirmishes, and Mirren convincingly suggests the toll it takes to put young men in harm’s way.
Nattiv takes a break from the war in order to make Golda more of a traditional character story. She chain-smokes constantly, even during hospital treatments for lymphoma, and does her best to manage the ego of those in her inner circle. Sometimes this means talking to assistants who have children in the conflict, and sometimes this means trying to figure out whether one of her advisors might be a saboteur. At a crisp runtime of 100 minutes, Nattiv never quite gives any of those subplots much attention, so their payoff can be perfunctory. When we learn the saboteur’s identity, for example, there is no further comeuppance. Even Meir’s conversations with Henry Kissinger (Liev Schreiber), the U.S. Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon, have little resolution or insight into statecraft. This is the rare film that could benefit from a shorter runtime with no fat, or a longer runtime that would allow the characters to breathe.
In between dialogue scenes, Golda includes exaggerated flourishes that provide some insight into its subject’s mental state. There is intense cross-cutting to newsreel footage, a kind of cinematic post-traumatic stress that mirrors Mirren’s inward, pained performance. Not only does this imagery keep the film from getting too stagey, it also sets up the final scenes where the suspense gives way to something approaching hagiography. Nattiv’s decisions can be odd, like his willingness to mix archival footage of the actual Golda Meir with Mirren spliced in, but others suggest he was never quite sincere about his earlier apolitical procedural on a global stage. The final scenes are an unearned tribute, a gambit built on the idea that the film would make the audience adore Meir as much as the filmmakers clearly do. (It does not help that Nattiv chooses “Who By Fire,” an appropriate but all-too ubiquitous Leonard Cohen song, as the soundtrack.) The film is not cohesive or intense enough to accomplish its barely concealed goals, and so the melancholy final moments are superfluous at best, tacky at worst.
Golda opens in area theaters on Aug. 25.
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