I think Golda was a bit unfairly dismissed by critics and eventually, given the time of its release (fall of 2023...yikes), became a somewhat "dicey" film to explore. At a time when opinions of Israel are widely divergent and the country yet again finds itself thrown into the international spotlight, a historical drama about one of its most iconic and important leaders doesn't seem to be a can of worms people wanted to open.
For its part, Golda is an excellent thesis on why Israeli leaders act and decide the way they do: they face uniquely high stakes with every confrontation and are tasked with not just national success or failure, but the existence of the country itself. It's not justifying anything as much as it asks us to understand; to be frank, leaders of most of the world's countries have no idea what being an Israeli leader is like. Focusing it on a single defining moment of her life was, as usual, the right choice, as opposed to a clichéd "event-by-event" biopic.
Helen Mirren is truly excellent here; Mirren is one of those actresses whom I sometimes find is beloved in "every" role she plays, so it's hard to actually judge her fairly. But here, she really does excel and disappears into the role completely. Overall, the performances are genuinely good across the board here; I actually really liked Liev Schrieber as Henry Kissinger, even if the archival footage they eventually show of him ruins the illusion a bit.
The film has some interesting cinematography that inevitably makes you feel uneasy and off kilter. It works to demonstrate how a small room of people can make decisions that reverberate and affect the fate of millions. It was filmed and edited in a far more interesting way than it needed to be.
Unfortunately, I don't think Golda stuck the landing all that well. Towards the three quarter mark of the film, the military speak becomes incomprehensible and the stakes are lessened considerably. I don't think it's wrong to ask for a film about a war to um...give us some footage of a war. They do it once and never again and by the third scene of people standing in a room "hearing" bullets whizz by and the sound of explosions, it becomes painfully obvious it was a budgetary consideration. That's fair enough - but then the film's scope could've been expanded in other ways. The film begins to feel a bit too small scale for what it's about.
I also feel the film, especially towards the end, acts more as a "rehabilitation" of Golda's image rather than a film with fully fleshed out themes. What is this movie trying to say? What is it really about? Is Golda, for example, a different kind of leader because she's the only woman routinely in rooms full of men? How? The film sorta of paints pictures of her connecting more fruitfully with the women around her (the typists, the assistants etc.), but never really explores this.
Could Golda's public haranguing and eventual fall from power explored more? There's a brilliant line in the film - "every career in politics ends in failure - that I feel could've been the theme of the film, but it's never expanded on either. As it stands, Golda is better than I expected, but I kind of wish it was more than it was. A fine, entertaining historical drama about a fascinating conflict, but lacking in ambition.
For its part, Golda is an excellent thesis on why Israeli leaders act and decide the way they do: they face uniquely high stakes with every confrontation and are tasked with not just national success or failure, but the existence of the country itself. It's not justifying anything as much as it asks us to understand; to be frank, leaders of most of the world's countries have no idea what being an Israeli leader is like. Focusing it on a single defining moment of her life was, as usual, the right choice, as opposed to a clichéd "event-by-event" biopic.
Helen Mirren is truly excellent here; Mirren is one of those actresses whom I sometimes find is beloved in "every" role she plays, so it's hard to actually judge her fairly. But here, she really does excel and disappears into the role completely. Overall, the performances are genuinely good across the board here; I actually really liked Liev Schrieber as Henry Kissinger, even if the archival footage they eventually show of him ruins the illusion a bit.
The film has some interesting cinematography that inevitably makes you feel uneasy and off kilter. It works to demonstrate how a small room of people can make decisions that reverberate and affect the fate of millions. It was filmed and edited in a far more interesting way than it needed to be.
Unfortunately, I don't think Golda stuck the landing all that well. Towards the three quarter mark of the film, the military speak becomes incomprehensible and the stakes are lessened considerably. I don't think it's wrong to ask for a film about a war to um...give us some footage of a war. They do it once and never again and by the third scene of people standing in a room "hearing" bullets whizz by and the sound of explosions, it becomes painfully obvious it was a budgetary consideration. That's fair enough - but then the film's scope could've been expanded in other ways. The film begins to feel a bit too small scale for what it's about.
I also feel the film, especially towards the end, acts more as a "rehabilitation" of Golda's image rather than a film with fully fleshed out themes. What is this movie trying to say? What is it really about? Is Golda, for example, a different kind of leader because she's the only woman routinely in rooms full of men? How? The film sorta of paints pictures of her connecting more fruitfully with the women around her (the typists, the assistants etc.), but never really explores this.
Could Golda's public haranguing and eventual fall from power explored more? There's a brilliant line in the film - "every career in politics ends in failure - that I feel could've been the theme of the film, but it's never expanded on either. As it stands, Golda is better than I expected, but I kind of wish it was more than it was. A fine, entertaining historical drama about a fascinating conflict, but lacking in ambition.