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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

64
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69
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54
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Sixty Six
85
Slumdog Millionaire
57
Special
79
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
67
Synecdoche, New York
82
Tell No One
83
Trouble the Water
43
Tru Loved
83
U2 3D
59
We Are Wizards
55
What Just Happened?
89
Man on Wire
85
Slumdog Millionaire
84
Momma's Man
84
Christmas Tale, A
84
Happy-Go-Lucky
83
Trouble the Water
83
U2 3D
82
Tell No One
82
Rachel Getting Married
82
Frozen River
82
Let the Right One In
81
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
79
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
78
I've Loved You So Long
77
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
76
Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
75
Pool, The
73
Girl Cut in Two, A
72
I Served the King of England
70
I.O.U.S. A
69
Ashes of Time Redux
69
Fear(s) of the Dark
68
August Evening
67
Synecdoche, New York
64
Appaloosa
63
JCVD
63
Eden
63
Changeling
62
Duchess, The
59
We Are Wizards
57
Special
57
Sixty Six
56
Religulous
55
Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
55
What Just Happened?
54
Battle in Seattle
54
Good Dick
53
RocknRolla
51
Morning Light
50
Breakfast with Scot
47
How About You
47
Choke
46
Dukes, The
43
Tru Loved
43
Gardens of the Night
41
Cthulhu
40
Igor
40
Other End of the Line, The
34
My Name Is Bruce
34
Otto; or Up with Dead People
32
Repo! The Genetic Opera
31
Hounddog
30
Guitar, The
28
Fireproof
27
Lake City
26
House of the Sleeping Beauties
26
Filth and Wisdom
xx
Dostana
xx
Nobel Son
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Close to Home
IFC First Take
MPAA RATING: Not Rated
Starring
Neama Shendar,
and
Smadar Sayar
Compelling and controversial, this film chronicles the day to day life of two Israeli women, Smadar and Mirit, during their compulsory military service. (IFC First Take)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
Foreign
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Vardit Bilu
Dalia Hagar
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Vardit Bilu
Dalia Hagar
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: June 19, 2007
Theatrical: February 16, 2007
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
90 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
Israel |
| LANGUAGE(S): |
Hebrew (with English subtitles) |
Original title "Karov La Bayit"

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
75
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Noel Murray
Sayar and Schnendar are likeable performers, and if Bilu and Hager had pushed the "private school for girls" side of Close To Home a little harder, they could have had a sharp satire on their hands. Instead, it's all played straight and close to the surface.

75
TV Guide
Ken Fox
It presents an image of today's Israeli army, composed of teenagers who are by now several generations removed from the founders' original vision and have begun to question whether tactics designed to keep the country safe will only lead to increased levels of fear, humiliation and deadly violence.

75
New York Daily News
Elizabeth Weitzman
Filmmakers Vardit Bilu and Dalia Hagar don't seem as interested in taking sides as they do in exploring universal themes.

75
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
One of the rare movies from Israel that refuses to spell out its politics, and you may wind up grateful for the ambiguity.

75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Kamal Al-Solaylee
The film is much more subversive for treading back and forth between the political and the personal, the Arab and the Israeli points of view.

70
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
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.

70
Los Angeles Times
Lael Loewenstein
Close to Home is a slender slice -- a sliver is more like it -- of a very rich cake.

70
The New York Times
Stephen Holden
The movie, written and directed by Vidi Bilu and Dalia Hager, is really a study of people coping with excruciating boredom and the absurd aspects of military life.

70
Variety
Derek Elley
Mixes humor, tragedy, tenderness and political acumen into a well-observed coming-of-age format.

60
Empire
Patrick Peters
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.

50
Village Voice
Ella Taylor
Though it clearly means to call into question the legitimacy of their work, the movie is formlessly episodic as it meanders from one day to the next, finally losing itself in a forest of coming-of-age clichés.

50
The New Republic
Stanley Kauffmann
In short, this squad is an ill-trained, slovenly bunch of soldiers. That such behavior exists, or can exist, in any army is surely commonplace, but that Israeli producers should want to make a film about the matter at this time is puzzling.

50
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
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.


The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 1 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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