Or (2004)

77% of critics liked it
(26 reviews)
81% of users liked it
(443 ratings)

Or shoulders a lot: she's 17 or 18, a student, works evenings at a restaurant, recycles cans and bottles for cash, and tries to keep her mother Ruthie from returning to streetwalking in Tel Aviv. Ruthie calls Or "my treasure," but Ruthie is a burden. She's just out of hospital, weak, and Or has… More Or shoulders a lot: she's 17 or 18, a student, works evenings at a restaurant, recycles cans and bottles for cash, and tries to keep her mother Ruthie from returning to streetwalking in Tel Aviv. Ruthie calls Or "my treasure," but Ruthie is a burden. She's just out of hospital, weak, and Or has found her a job as a house cleaner. The call of the quick money on the street is tough for Ruthie to ignore. Or's emotions roil further when the mother of the youth she's in love with comes to the flat to warn her off. With love fading and Ruthie perhaps beyond help, Or's choices narrow.

Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 40 min.
Directed By: Keren Yedaya
Written By: Sari Ezouz, Keren Yedaya
Genres: Art House & International, Drama

In Theaters: Sep 16, 2004 Wide
On DVD: Jan 3, 2006
Studio: Kino International

Critic Reviews

G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle
Her movie is indeed ambitious and her goals admirable. But sometimes it seems more position paper than cinema.
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
A work of exceptional subtlety and is all the more captivating and heart-rending for being so.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
This movie seems to be meditating on the whys and hows of the spoiling process -- raising more questions than can possibly be answered, and in this sense, at least, far from dogmatic.
Andrew Sarris, New York Observer
Ms. Yedaya may have made a subtler and more interesting film about prostitution than she originally intended.
Jack Mathews, New York Daily News
Even as Or joins an escort service and begins to follow in her mother's footsteps, Yedaya holds out hope that the girl will stop trying to rescue Mom and save herself.
V.A. Musetto, New York Post
A raw drama from Israeli director Keren Yedaya.
Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine
A flawed work about prostitution and a frayed mother-daughter union in Israel that's at least worth a rental.
Sean Axmaker, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Yedaya is respectful and sensitive of everyone in Or's life and creates a beautiful, complex and rich relationship between mother and daughter...
Michele Kenner, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Detail after detail, Yedaya charts the emotional push-pull between daughter and mother and their internal turmoils.
Andrew Wright, The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
A worthy downer, marred only by a queasy feel of exploitation in the final frames. In Yedaya's world, nobody gets off easy, including the audience.
Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Daily News
Yedaya's starkly photographed first feature is as much a social statement as a character study.
, E! Online
Its broken heart of gold is in the right place.
Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly
Yedaya drowns her characters in realist grit, a colorless screenplay and no score to speak of, rendering this open book of a movie alienating in all the wrong ways.
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com
The problem is not that the film is depressing or that the characters are doomed, but that it lacks a broader political context to illuminate the problem of prostitution
Leo Goldsmith, Not Coming to a Theater Near You
OR observes a moral and psychological distance form its characters that is maddeningly, heartbreakingly irresolute.
Ken Fox, TV Guide's Movie Guide
Yedaya's stark, rigorously naturalistic style recalls neorealism, but she tells her sad tale without an ounce of the usual sentimentality.
David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor
Acted and directed with uncommon psychological realism.

Read all 17 critic reviews

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Walter M

[font=Century Gothic][color=blue]"Or(My Treasure)" is a movie from Israel about teenaged Or(Dana Ivgy) and her mother Ruthie(Ronit Elkabetz). At the beginning of the movie, Or is picking up her mother at a hospital where she has been treated for depression. Due to… More
[font=Century Gothic][color=blue]"Or(My Treasure)" is a movie from Israel about teenaged Or(Dana Ivgy) and her mother Ruthie(Ronit Elkabetz). At the beginning of the movie, Or is picking up her mother at a hospital where she has been treated for depression. Due to Ruthie's problems, of which there are many, Or has taken on the duties of breadwinner for the household - collecting empty bottles for refunds in the morning; working in a neighborhood restaurant in the evening. As you can imagine, this leaves little time for school and Ruthie is not really aware what affect her behavior is having on her daughter. Or is at an age when she is starting to take control of her life and is beginning to become familiar with the opposite sex.[/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#0000ff][/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#0000ff]"Or(My Treasure)" is a worthy examination of life on the economic edge with excellent performances. But there are questions that are not answered - like how long has Ruthie been like this? Plus, there is a decision late in the movie that I just don't believe. [/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#0000ff][/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#0000ff][color=darkslategray]"The Two of Us" starts out in Nazi-occupied France in 1943, just as young Claude attempts to shoplift a toy tank or two.(He would have been better off stealing a real one...) Claude is Jewish and his father dearly wants his son to keep himself out of trouble so as not to attract undue attention. Since there is also bombing going on, the parents decide to send Claude to the country to spend time with a friend's father for safekeeping. The catch is that the old man is a virulent anti-semite and Claude cannot give away that he is Jewish.[/color][/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#0000ff][/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#0000ff][color=#2f4f4f]"The Two of Us" is a funny touching coming-of-age movie about a very serious subject. As an added plus, there is a degree of complexity surrounding the old man - he is an unapologetic bigot but he also has a heart of gold but it turns out that Claude is actually much wiser than his aged host.[/color][/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#0000ff][/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#0000ff][color=black]"The Truce" is based on Primo Levi's autobiographical telling of his journey back from Auschwitz after it has been liberated by the Soviet army to his native Italy. Along the way, he encounters various characters who are either returning to their homelands or trying to return to their old lives. [/color][/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#0000ff][/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#0000ff][color=#000000]On the plus side, "The Truce" is about a part of history that is rarely focused on - the repatriation of refugees after World War II. It is also quite nice looking. However, the movie is hardly subtle. Yes, we realize the significance of Auschwitz being liberated, so we don't need the orchestral flourishes to emphasize this.(And yes I thought the four horsemen was laying it on a bit much.) Also, John Turturro really seems like a supporting player when the movie should be about his character and he is often upstaged by Rada Serbedzija playing a rakish Greek citizen, also heading home. [/color] [/color][/font]