Golda: Helen Mirren Soldiers On in an Earthbound Treatment of the Yom Kippur War's Scapegoat
By Karen Gordon
Rating: B-minus
Helen Mirren all but disappears into the lead role of the new film Golda. She’s buried in a costume and makeup that transforms her into a convincing double of the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, especially from a distance.
It’s when the camera closes in on her eyes, red rimmed from grief and exhaustion, that we recognize that it’s Mirren inside the costume, and we get a sense of what director Guy Nattiv is trying to say with the film.
Golda is a close and personal look at the Israeli leader during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, where a lack of preparedness put Israel in an extreme disadvantage and cost lives. And, even though she was cleared of wrongdoing, the event has stained Golda’s legacy in the minds of some in Israel.
Helen Mirren plays an impressive facsimile of the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in Golda.
Nattiv is aiming to redeem her legacy with this film. To that end he unfolds the story like a thriller, where we get a sense of the day-to-day tensions of a war that posed an existential threat to her country and the immense pressure she was under.
He has cast it well. And yet, despite the tension, Golda is disappointingly flat.
The film begins with Meir testifying in front of the Agranat Commission, set up in 1974 to examine why the Israeli Defence Force was so unprepared for the attack. The hearing frames the film.
From there it goes back to the day before the invasion. Golda is meeting with her key cabinet and military ministers. There is intelligence in advance of the attack that something is up.
But there is some hubris in the cabinet. Not all her key generals and advisors are convinced that it’s worth putting the military on alert, especially not on the eve of Yom Kippur. Meir’s gut feeling tells her the opposite. But she goes along with their advice, something she and the rest of her cabinet will come to regret.
The war begins, leaving them scrambling to get their troops in place, starting Israel off at a considerable disadvantage. The early days of the war are difficult and painful. Meir, and the generals sit in the military operation room and listen to their soldiers in action. It’s grueling. Their forces are overwhelmed in the field, ambushed, taking fire. As days tick on, the Israelis burn through equipment. Strategies backfire.
Most of the action is in meeting rooms, military operation rooms and Meir’s home. Nattiv has given the film the dark look of a bunker and filled it with cigarette smoke. (Meir was a serious chain smoker.)
But, Nattiv is also aiming to give us a more human perspective of Golda. Outwardly, Golda was stoic and carried herself as a strong focused leader.
She was suffering from lymphoma, something she kept private. Throughout the film, she goes for exams and treatments, each time walking (for some reason) through a morgue en route to a treatment room. She is accompanied by her assistant, Lou Kaddar (Camille Cottin), the only person who knows what Golda is suffering through, is a constant source of support.
Whatever the cost of the treatments to her health, she never showed it.
The few signs we get of what might have been going on in her mind come in those facial close-ups and red rimmed eyes, indicating a held-back swell of emotion.
Nattiv gives Mirren a few moments here or there for us to see the stress. And it is considerable. Some of the people in her office have children on the front lines. There is nothing abstract to Golda or to her cabinet.
Mirren gives a careful and thoughtful performance. And despite being encumbered by a costume (which includes, for some unknown reason, carrying a giant purse with her, to the point where it’s distracting), she does a good job of giving us a sense of the weight on her shoulders. She does this without diminishing those qualities of courage and strength of as a leader even under such extreme pressure.
Nattiv does give Golda her due. He shows us the point where as leader she chooses to take full responsibility for another’s key error, something that would stain her legacy.
Towards the end of the movie, Nattiv begins to mix in news footage of the real Meir. The Yom Kippur war inflicted a psychic wound on Israel. But despite the terrible losses of life, it did lead to the Camp David Accords and a peace treaty with Egypt.
Golda gives us what we need to make us understand the incredible jeopardy and the pressures Golda was under. But that understanding is intellectual. Although all the elements are there, the film stays frustratingly earthbound. Where there should be emotion, too often, Golda just feels flat.
CLICK HERE to read Bonnie Laufer’s interview with Golda director Guy Nattiv.
Golda. Directed by Guy Nattiv, written by Nicholas Martin. Stars Helen Mirren, Liev Schreiber and Lior Ashkenazi. Opens in theatres Friday, August 25.