Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
49
2012
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
70
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
52
Blind Side
47
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
23
Couples Retreat
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
41
G-Force
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
28
Pandorum
58
Pirate Radio
39
Planet 51
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
46
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum
56
Adam
39
Adventures of Power
66
Afterschool
73
Amreeka
49
Antichrist
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The
71
Big Fan
65
Black Dynamite
76
Bliss
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star
76
Broken Embraces
70
Bronson
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
60
Collapse
82
Cove, The
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The
53
Dare
50
Defamation
67
Departures
70
Earth Days
85
Education, An
55
Endgame
88
Fantastic Mr. Fox
31
Fix
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
xx
From Mexico with Love
28
Gentlemen Broncos
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo
63
Horse Boy, The
74
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
26
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
43
Little Traitor, The
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
46
Love Hurts
84
Maid, The
45
Mammoth
75
Messenger, The
55
Missing Person, The
59
More Than a Game
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
48
New York, I Love You
66
No Impact Man
26
Oh My God
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73
Red Cliff
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
65
Skin
41
Splinterheads
42
Staten Island
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
58
Storm
82
Sun, The
49
Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73
That Evening Sun
61
Trucker
49
Turning Green
83
U2 3D
45
Uncertainty
67
Visual Acoustics
32
War on Kids
67
Way We Get By, The
65
Wedding Song, The
xx
White on Rice
59
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74
Woman in Berlin, A
43
Women in Trouble
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Jellyfish
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 21 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 5 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Shira Geffen
Directed by:
Shira Geffen
Etgar Keret
Release Date:
Theatrical: April 4, 2008
Running Time: 78 minutes, Color
Origin: France / Israel
Language(s): Hebrew / French
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Sarah Adler, Tsipor Aizen, Bruria Albek, Ilanit Ben-Yaakov, and Assi Dayan
Poignant, often witty, and exceedingly cinematic, Jellyfish tells the story of three very different Tel Aviv women whose intersecting stories weave an unlikely portrait of modern Israeli life. Batya, a catering waitress, takes in a child apparently abandoned at a local beach. Batya is one of the servers at the wedding reception of Keren, a bride who breaks her leg escaping a locked toilet stall, ruining her chance at a dream Caribbean honeymoon. And attending the event with an employer is Joy, a non-Hebrew-speaking domestic worker who has guiltily left her son behind in her native Philippines. As this distaff trio separately wend their way through Israel's most cosmopolitan city, they struggle with issues of communication, affection, and destiny--but at times find uneasy refuge in its tranquil seas. (Zeitgeist Films)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
What The Critics Said
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...
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jason McBride
Like a Keret story, Jellyfish is economical – a mere 78 minutes – but it packs into its taut, intersecting storylines a charming melancholy and a surprisingly rich depth.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
What gives the film a haunting and sometimes droll poetic unity is the way co-directors Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen trace all their characters moving in a jellyfish-like fashion.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Marvelously inventive, often-ironic Israeli storyteller Etgar Keret and his life- and workmate, Shira Geffen, spin in Jellyfish a dreamy, arty, alluringly cockeyed tale involving three unrelated women in Tel Aviv.
Read Full Review >Variety Alissa Simon
Tightly constructed, cleverly stylized, serio-comic ensemble piece. Highly cinematic, with a mood of existential loneliness leavened by magical whimsy, its different story strands share themes including the need for affection and the struggle to communicate.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Yes, Jellyfish says, it's a wonderful life, not in that old-fashioned style we've perhaps tired of but in a surprising new and magical way all its own.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Walter Addiego
The scale is small, but Jellyfish has deep currents.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Not for all tastes, but produces haunting juxtapositions.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
These stories have as their justification that fact that they are intrinsically interesting. I think that's enough.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
There's enough material here for a miniseries, but the directors keep the proceedings to 78 brisk minutes without making the viewer feel cheated.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
An Israeli movie with neither politics nor religion--and only one casual, if fraught, mention of the Holocaust--bespeaks an underlying desire for normality that's as poignant and fantastic as Keret and Geffen's modest, shabby Tel Aviv settings.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall
The overlapping stories pulse with a tidal rhythm, the film's sensibility flowing between serious and wry, and there are memorable turns from Assi Dayan as the waitress's henpecked dad and Tzahi Grad as a cop with a nonchalant attitude toward babysitting.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Bernard Besserglik
Several stories, or scraps of stories, are woven together in the making of Jellyfish ("Meduzot"), linked by common themes and a shared sense of humor, poetry and loss.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
The film’s spirit is refreshingly playful and sweet.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
I appreciated and admired the craftsmanship of Jellyfish more than I loved it, and I found its whimsical, magic-realist touches a bit cloying. Just as I began to appreciate that it had depths I hadn't perceived, it was over.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
An interlocking ensemble piece in the tradition of "Crash" and "Babel," but with welcome dashes of whimsy and magical realism.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
Jellyfish is the kind of film that will ring true for some viewers, while striking others as too slight and precious.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
In spite of the entropy, Jellyfish is close to a comedy, with a gentle sense of absurdism and a welcome generosity toward its characters.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
I have an aversion to such intricately interlocked movies as "Babel" or "Crash" -- for all their pretensions and astral connections they're basically stunts -- and my feelings about Jellyfish are much the same. But this film is handsomely made, and I won't soon forget the almost Jungian image of a wide-eyed child -- emerging from the sea with a red and white lifesaver around her little belly.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
When I ask myself what it is that these women in the movie want, I come up with bubkes.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 9.6 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Wodek S gave it a10:
An original film beautifully edited with lyrical flair.
Bill C gave it a10:
An amazing film. Every moment, every minor character, every line carries significance to the whole. Stunning.
