[The Matchmaker] succeeds on two levels -- as a Middle East coming-of-age fable during a period of cultural change, and a rare view of Holocaust survivors in Israel learning to live and love again.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 24, 2016

This immensely pleasurable and moving film manages to weave the many strands of its plot to create a portrait of Israel in 1968 that sheds light on the country today, and does so without sacrificing drama to polemics.

| Mar 21, 2016

At heart an unexpectedly complex film about love, but also an examination of Israel in flux, a country with one foot in the past and another in the future - a weight that may never fully vacate Israeli shoulders.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 14, 2013

The shadow of the Holocaust hangs over this unique Israeli coming-of-age film, which deals with a special kind of survivor's guilt.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 14, 2013

Contains an undercurrent of real menace, not just candy nostalgia.

| Dec 20, 2012

Nesher ... has a populist touch, showing a sure hand with the numerous subplots and never allowing us to lose sight of his characters' humanity, even the mostly pathetic villain of the piece.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 14, 2012

This is a sweet, bittersweet comedy, well-executed if perhaps a little heavy on anecdotage.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 13, 2012

A different kind of coming-of-age story, one infused with the lingering horrors of the Holocaust.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 6, 2012

A movie that's somehow delightful even as it visits devastation.

| Original Score: B+ | Oct 19, 2012

The Matchmaker is to fine drama what gefilte fish is to lox. Hold the cream cheese.

| Aug 23, 2012

Though aided by beautiful views of Haifa, some amusing entertainment, and flashes of poignancy, the appeal is mostly heavily laden, cross-generational nostalgia.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Aug 22, 2012

The film intelligently portrays how, even years later, the memories of trauma can be enough to inhibit a person from finding happiness - and consequently, how essential love is.

| Aug 17, 2012

Arik's coming-of-age story and the personalities he encounters along the way express the hopes and fears of a country awash in unsettling history.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 16, 2012

Feels like Nesher is simply mashing several stock elements together and gracelessly parading them around.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 14, 2012

The Matchmaker combines the tender tone of a film like Cinema Paradiso with a clear-eyed, street-level vantage on Israel's summer of the Six-Day War.

| Aug 14, 2012

The film ultimately fails to treat history as anything but a string of melodramatic reference points for moody characters haplessly trying to find love.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 13, 2012

A delightful, subtle Israeli coming-of-age comedy-drama.

| Original Score: B+ | Aug 7, 2012

It sounds like a throwback to an earlier, more traditional style of Israeli filmmaking but it instead provides a view of that country that's as satisfyingly eccentric and unexpected as anything we've seen.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 28, 2012

Points to Nesher for maintaining an even balance between the darker and lighter shades of his palette, not to mention the subtlety with which he moves from one to the other.

| Jun 28, 2012

A fascinating Euro-Israeli rite of passage story...See this.

| Original Score: A- | Jun 22, 2012