This film has without a doubt the longest and most erotic bedroom scene ever done in movies. You can actually see the guy's aroused state if you look close enough. That's a first for me in film. To say my hormones were bouncing around would be an understatement. The male lead and his knock-out female companion were not kidding around when they did this scene. It was for real and that's no joke. I had just seen the male lead in another fabulous film, Walking on Water, where I came to the realization he has to be one of the hottest men in the movies, but Water only hints at just how hot this guy is where in this film he ascends to the highest plane of hotness. Paired with the hottest female ever seen in film the duo make magic in spades. It has taken me a couple of days to calm down from this flick!

So ugly was this movie that I really don't know what to start with. It seems to me that I have such different esthetically taste and ethical values to half of the Planet Earth... Do people like this exist? Do you really meet them on the streets, in the cafés, in the markets in Israel? Do they form the vast majority of the city of Tel Aviv? I don't know which critic(one that I really appreciated) defined this film "splendid"... There's nothing splendid about this film, not one frame, not one second..Everything is plain ugly. No, not ugly, repulsive, obnoxious. And the sex scene...Oh, oh, oh... Is defined realistic... I would call completely tasteless, useless(and I am not a shy type, I loved the sex scenes in Lust,caution, for example)

I thought this movie achieved two remarkable things: First, it defies conventional categorization. It is a comedy and a family drama and a steamy romance. It manages to transcend geography as well: This could have easily taken place in the US, Italy or any one of a number of countries.Second, I thought that each scene was surprising and inventive and unexpected. I could not have predicted what was going to happen next, but each successive scene made perfect sense.I highly recommend this movie to fearless moviegoers who value clever plotting and ingenuity.

Apparently certain viewers are easily satisfied with this slice of exotic ethnicity sans the usual requirements of coherence and direction. I am not. As some have noted, it can be defined as a comedy only by some rather twisted logic. That involves the presumption that it is intended as an ironic portrayal of deeply flawed human behavior at odds with contemporary social norms.My own take is that everyone except the dog and the little girl seem to have come out of case studies in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). From the obese mother to the passive-aggressive son to the to the whole pack of stolid relatives who act as if nothing is strange about how they lead their lives, everything seems just plain weird.As has been noted, the love-making scene is not badly done. And the acting prowess of Ronit Elkabetz should garner some future attention. I would say the same for the dog, but I don't see him credited.A klezmer version of "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White" opens the final scene that deteriorates from there both in terms of plausibility and structural unity. Credits rolled without warning just as I was in the midst of a great yawn.