‘Golda’ Review: Chain-Smoking Through the Guilt

“Golda” — as in Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister who resigned in 1974 over her administration’s dealing with of the Yom Kippur War — movies its title character in confrontational close-ups of her red-rimmed eyes, nicotine-stained fingers and swollen ankles. Somewhere beneath the prosthetics is Helen Mirren, formidably shouldering Meir’s suppressed anguish over the battle’s demise toll.

Extreme costuming typically feels gimmicky, however right here, it humanizes the director Guy Nattiv’s terse accounting of guilt. As one imagines the burden of carrying Meir’s synthetic pores and skin, you may virtually hear Nattiv hiss: Now think about placing your self within the precise girl’s orthopedic footwear. Or as Mirren’s Meir cracks to Henry Kissinger (Liev Schreiber), “Things could be worse. You could have my feet.”

Israel has been surprise-attacked by Egypt and Syria, and Kissinger is anxious with retaining the Soviets calm and oil costs low. The script, by Nicholas Martin, doesn’t argue the righteousness of the battle. Instead, it frets over the physique rely — and although we’re with Meir and her fractious advisers as they clap for the bloodbath of Egyptian troopers, the digicam reacts by going all woozy prefer it’s nauseous.

Niv Adiri’s dense sound design and Dascha Dauenhauer’s impactful rating flip battle right into a residing nightmare. For good measure, we additionally go inside Meir’s unhealthy desires. Awake, nonetheless, the polarizing chief is the type of stoic who chain-smokes via her lymphoma therapies. The movie is structured by her cigarettes. Edits reduce from one puff to a different; the minister of protection, Moshe Dayan (Rami Heuberger), makes use of packs and lighters to stand-in for navy models; ashtrays fill and fill once more. We’re left with the sense that the stress of these 1000’s of lives reduce quick could have killed her, too.

Golda
Rated PG-13 for pervasive smoking. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters.