One of the all-time worst movies I've ever seen. One line will give you an idea of how cringe-inducing the writing is: "Pray to the cruel god Buddha..." The writing exhibits an almost willful stupidity about Eastern religions, showing statues of Hindu deities in what is supposed to be a Buddhist monastery of some kind, in Bodh-Gaya, the birthplace of the Buddha. Buddha is constantly referred to as a "god" by Indians who are clearly Hindu. Then there's the rest of the script which is completely contrived and barely coherent. Characters are constantly being thrown around by the writer and director. The actors look like they wish they were in a different film, wondering what ever possessed them to take *this* job. I was surprised to see that this mess was actually based on a novel by A.B. Yehoshua, a highly respected modern Israeli author. I'm curious to see how different it is from the film.

Waste of time. Really awful. Terrible acting -- Riki Gal, I'm talking to you. I don't know how much the film deviated from the book, but the story was completely unbelievable, especially with Riki Gal and Aki Avni as their respective characters and together as a couple. (I actually am fond of Aki Avni, who, I thought, was pretty good in Tironut.) We're supposed to believe that a mother, in order to spend more alone time with the hot young doctor, would abandon her almost dying daughter time and time again? That this doctor obsesses over this pathetic excuse for a mother? I don't know how it ends because I couldn't possibly watch any more. Don't waste your time on it.

"Return from India" is based on a novel by A.B. Yehoshua, a major figure in contemporary Hebrew Literature, which recounts in fictional form an important phenomenon among young Israelis, mostly those who have just completed military service. It's common for Israelis fresh from their military service to leave the country for a long period of travel abroad. India has become a favorite destination. While most go simply for the experience of visiting a colorful and exotic country utterly unlike their own, a lot go for the spiritual experience. Secular Israelis are notgenerally attracted to the non-Orthodox forms of Judaism practiced in the United States. Some experiment with the spiritualism found in Buddhism (as do many young American Jews). That is the factual foundation on which Yehoshua constructed his novel. On the screen, however, the story depends on inferences about the motivations of the characters since the characters are not fully developed, and much of what happens seems to contradict what the film actually shows. I've been told by someone who read the novel that motivations are equally unclear in the book. A young medical intern is persuaded to travel to India to save the life of the daughter of a couple that has been married for 25 years and who openly display their love for one another. Once the father returns to Israel because the daughter is not yet ready to travel and he has a conference he must attend, the wife and the intern go out on the town, leaving the desperately ill daughter alone in her room, and the wife aggressively seeks an affair with the young doctor. Neither leaving the daughter, nor the wife's behavior toward the young doctor are grounded in what has come before. And that's only the beginning of many emotional events that seem to spring out of nowhere. I saw this film with about 50 other people and in the discussion that followed, most had similar complaints. The actors are attractive and the Indian settings are fascinating but the plot is improbable, the characters are a wash out and the movie is deeply unsatisfying. Not that older women don't seek sex with younger men, not that younger men are unwilling to go to bed with older women, not that people might not travel thousands of miles to save a child and then ignore her when she's not ready to travel. All that is possible. But it is the obligation of novelists and script writers and directors to delve deeply enough into their characters to prepare you for the events in the plot.

Menahem Golan hasn't directed a movie in Israel for 25 years. This film version of A. B. Yehoshua best-seller was Golan's dream for many years and the bottom line is it was worth waiting for. The story evolves around a young Israeli doctor, who comes to India determined to bring back the sick daughter of his boss, but finishes falling in love with her mother. Fast pacing, hot erotic scenes, nice plot. There are some flaws in the adaptation, sometimes the pacing is too fast, but this movie is certainly a B Movie success made by the father of Israeli cinema. A. B. Yehoshua may be disappointed, but average film viewer gets here everything he looks for. See it!