Critic Reviews

• Linda Barnard, Toronto Star

  Knoller is wonderful as the emotionally cut-off, yet vulnerable Yossi, who yearns for something more from life, but feels both terror at the prospect and unworthiness to claim it.

• Rick Groen, Globe and Mail

  Yossi is an early spring breeze of a film - too delicate to be substantial but definitely holding the promise of warmth.

• Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, Chicago Sun-Times

  It's serious about its characters and their emotions, but still finds room for humor.

• Stephanie Merry, Washington Post

  "Yossi" has an air of lightness but never feels insignificant.

• Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader

  Eytan Fox depicts modern gay life and contemporary Tel Aviv with sympathy and knowing insight, and he excels at creating casual rapport among actors; yet in film after film he undermines these gifts with hamfisted melodramatic plotting.

• Loren King, Boston Globe

  Knoller manages to make even a withdrawn character compelling, and worth rooting for as Yossi struggles to shed his shell.

• Jamie S. Rich, Oregonian

  Yossi is a stronger film than its predecessor, more deeply felt and less reliant on love-story conventions.

• Sean Axmaker, Seattle Weekly

  ... an awfully familiar fantasy-for gays and straights alike-about an emotionally repressed older man saved by a young beauty who sees the kind soul and intelligence under the frumpy surface.

• Daniel M. Kimmel, The Jewish Advocate

  Fox understands that the joys and tears of looking for love are not unique to gay Israeli men...viewers can relate to the emotional conflicts regardless of one's orientation.

• Jake Mulligan, Boston Phoenix

  Fox has graduated from amateur to modest professional.

• Sarah Boslaugh, PopMatters

  ...[Knoller's] portrayal of a person locked in his own grief is both realistic and sympathetic, and Fox brings events to a conclusion that is more than worth the wait.

• Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  The several allusions to Thomas Mann's forbidden-love novel "Death in Venice" are apt, but "Yossi" is also a standalone film and an extraordinary sequel.

• Chris Hewitt (St. Paul), St. Paul Pioneer Press

  Hovers somewhere between a realistic take on love and the vision of romance sold by drugstore novels.

• Brandon Judell, CultureCatch

  Directed by Eytan Fox, the gifted helmer of the international hit Walk on Water, 'Yossi,' a work of special depth, is yet another of his incisive character studies of a man who doesn't quite fit in until he finally does.

• David Noh, Film Journal International

  A dramatically challenging sequel, given warmly effective heart and soul by lead actor Ohad Knoller.

Read all 15 critic reviews