While Close to Home follows a predictable path in its story, it's not without its charms, much of it down to the very believable portrayal of the young soldiers who view many of their duties with the world-weariness of terminally bored teens.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 18, 2007

Both [main actresses] show their characters' growth while steadfastly and, sadly, unsuccessfully trying to hold on to the last vestiges of their innocence. If that's not the real tragedy of life in the Middle East, I don't know what is.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 18, 2007

A slyly subversive insight into the role of women in the Israeli military, this is a surprisingly compassionate satire that makes its political points without resorting to caricature.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 7, 2007

A sympathetic, subtly observed account of Israeli girl soldiers.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 7, 2007

More a buddy movie than a political one, it nonetheless captures the festering tensions of a divided city.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 3, 2007

Although its location and plot points are worlds away from typical Hollywood teen-angst fare, some of its themes are undeniably universal.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 23, 2007

The movie is awkwardly mounted and formlessly episodic as it meanders from one day to the next, finally losing itself in a forest of coming-of-age clichs.

Full Review | Mar 22, 2007

This movie just seems like a scattered excuse to make political points without saying much of anything. Worse, it also fails to show us, with any vividness, how Mirit and Smadar think and feel as women.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 10, 2007

Though the subject matter is original, and these young soldiers portrayed with great sympathy, Close to Home would have benefited from more disciplined storytelling.

| Original Score: 3/6 | Feb 24, 2007

One of the rare movies from Israel that refuses to spell out its politics, and you may wind up grateful for the ambiguity.

| Original Score: B | Feb 21, 2007

Like many Israeli films, Close to Home is strikingly sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians and, as such, qualifies as exemplary humanism under the most extreme pressure.

Full Review | Feb 21, 2007

Close To Home is at its best when the giggly coming-of-age story intersects with the political reality of life in Jerusalem, and we're made to understand that even the stupid stuff that every 18-year-old goes through has consequences in a hot spot.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Feb 18, 2007

If you've ever stifled a bubble of rage while going through airport security, you will recognize the tensions in Close to Home.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 16, 2007

Filmmakers Vardit Bilu and Dalia Hagar don't seem as interested in taking sides as they do in exploring universal themes.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 16, 2007

I won't argue for the cinematic virtues of this film; they don't exist. But as a pseudo-documentary portrait of real life behind the explosive headlines, it's absorbing.

| Feb 15, 2007

The general lack of politicization provides some commentary on conscription, yet it drains the film of any larger impact as a piece about Israeli-Palestinian relations.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 31, 2007

As a whole the film feels trite in the way it trivialises and sentimentalises what it is claiming to be an inherently flawed system.

| Oct 28, 2006