Critic Reviews

• Peter Howell, Toronto Star

  It's a bit of a mess.

• Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail

  It's too acerbic to be funny and too detached to be really moving.

• Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

  The story and even the characters turn out to be less interesting than the overview it gives us of the way Israelis live now, its portrait of a dislocated society where despair rumbles beneath the surface of everyday life.

• Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter

  None of the characters or situations truly manages to hold our attention, though there are some arresting moments.

• V.A. Musetto, New York Post

  Gitai ... records the comings and goings with a keen eye.

• Stephen Holden, New York Times

  Amos Gitai's acidly comic study of life in a flimsy Tel Aviv apartment complex is a sour urban mosaic whose seedy characters, try as they might, can't get out of one another's faces.

• Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid

  Gitai delivers an amazing film every bit as satisfying as his masterpiece Kippur (2001).

• Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

  Suggesting that the strain of the Arab conflict has gotten to the Israelis and that peace might only be a pipe dream.

• David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews

  ...Gitai has populated the story with one unlikable character after another, making it impossible for the viewer to connect with anything on screen.

• Bruce Kirkland, Jam! Movies

  For all its flaws, Alila is an interesting social issue film.

• Sheri Linden, Boxoffice Magazine

  For non-Israeli audiences, Alila is an alternately illuminating and confounding glimpse into seldom-seen aspects of the country.

• Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly

  Though absorbing enough, Alila must be counted a noble failure, if only because its efforts to follow the screwed-up lives of 12 hapless souls in a seedy Tel Aviv apartment building finally add up more to mere mimicry than commentary.

• Ed Gonzalez, City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul

  Gitaï's portrait of self-destructive lives is certainly honest, but his direction is suffocating.

• Lewis Beale, Film Journal International

  Extremely well-acted and generally absorbing.

• , E! Online

  Another piece of essential viewing for outsiders trying to understand life in the Middle East.

• Ken Fox, TV Guide's Movie Guide

  An interesting, if not entirely successful, adaptation of an excellent book.

Read all 16 critic reviews