Golda: Review

Many cigarettes were harmed in the making of this film

The biopic, specifically ones surrounding a period of history in war, is the most fascinating sub-genre in film. Most films, at the end of the day, have a single job: entertain. Some do this in more profound and artistic ways than others, but for most audiences as long as they are entertained for 90 to 120 minutes, they’re happy. But due to their historical storyline, biopics get thrown a second duty: balance entertainment with historical accuracy and inclusion.

How a film goes about this balancing act is often the art itself to judge, as a film is not a documentary and contains its own guardrails and limitations to what can or will be told. Golda is a new biopic about Israel’s first and still only female Prime Minister Golda Meir, and more specifically, about the monumental decisions she faced during the 19 days of the Yom Kippur War of 1973.

Bringing a story that real people lived through onto the big screen is a difficult job and always likely to bring some level of controversy. Golda’s mixed ratings from both critics and audiences possibly demonstrate this idea but as someone pretty ignorant of the nuanced history of Israel and the Middle East I can’t say for sure. What I am sure about is that Golda is one of the most unusual and unique biopics I’ve seen.

Director Guy Nattiv demonstrates a clear ambition to capture the existentialism of this seminal moment in history for the nation of Israel. Helen Mirren’s performance is a critical factor in accomplishing this. The moments with her are up close, both narratively and literally. Every painstaking decision is born on Mirren’s face and swallowed with the help of many cigarettes. It’s so personal that Mirren’s character reaches omnipresence. I’m having trouble recalling any scenes where she is not included.

This approach to the film cuts off a narrow slice of the history of the Yom Kippur War. Several critics have pointed to this tunnel vision being a wasted opportunity to tell a more complex version of this story. I can empathize with that because most history stories require more detail and nuance than what is possible to capture in a film. It points back to the balancing act required of a biopic and the tradeoffs that need to be made between history and narrative. However, movies are narratives, not textbooks. How a movie tells its story is often more relevant than the story itself.

The most striking aspect of Golda is the score. It sounds more appropriate for a horror movie than a historical biopic. It’s a jarring juxtaposition that ultimately works in service to the emotional totality that the Israeli people face. Mirren never allows her character to become distant from those who will suffer from the horrific choices she must make and the existential fallout of failure. That alone can be the subject of its own kind of horror movie.

And while Golda is never emotionally distant, the film recognizes that she is indeed physically distant. There’s just a single scene that depicts actual combat and even that is observed up high from the safety of a military helicopter. The others are gut-wrenchingly listened to over radio waves in Golda’s command center. Mirren never appears out of control in any situation, which makes these moments the hardest to endure.

The physical distance between the film and the bloody combat is another point of contention for critics, but in my opinion, this is what allows the film to prosper. The film’s title is not random, and while the backstory to Israel’s relations with the attacking Arab nations and the war itself are important topics, they’re not what the film is actually about. It’s about the leader at a precise moment in time when her nation was on an existential brink. We spend so much of the film from the perspective of Golda that actual combat depiction would likely be a strange, tonal disruption to the flow of the film.

Additionally, it’s relevant to the types of characters we are given. Everyone is either a member of the highest tier in military or political command or a member of Golda’s staff. These are typically not the people who must look the most horrific aspects of these conflicts directly in the eyes. Physically, they are safe within the walls of Jerusalem, but it is their choices that will decide if it will stay that way. And with any conflict, there is a moral reconciliation that must be made between its leaders and the thousands of lives whose blood will be on their hands. The film, like its military leaders, is aware of this reality but also never directly confronts it. Like it or not, at the very least it’s thematically and tonally consistent.

Then again, the persistent centering of Golda can be tiresome, and I think there’s merit that the film could have had a much more profound impact if it didn’t feel so objective with its recounting of Yom Kippur. The moments with Golda and her cabinet are tense and the deadly consequences transmitted across radio are harrowing, but a sense of recollection and perspective does seem lost on Nattiv. There are aesthetic and stylistic benefits to limiting your story to an objective and literal retelling of the historic war, but it comes at the price of narrative fulfillment and long-term resonance.

Mirren’s performance alone is enough to check out the film, and being a history nerd such as myself is an added bonus. There are also several moments where Nattiv peels back the objective layer and provides a more perceptive lens into the aging leader. Unfortunately, they are only moments and Mirren’s performance can’t carry the film by itself. So while Golda didn’t quite bring it all the way home for me to call one of my favorites of the year, it does have its shining moments that make it stand out in a similar style to the real Golda Meir.

Final Thought:

7.7