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75Gitai's characters are meant to represent the Israeli people as a whole. Just as they question their lives, the filmmaker questions 21st-century Israel.
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70An ensemble drama laced with lighter moments that depicts the vitality, resilience and moral dilemmas of the people of Tel Aviv, the film is absorbing and at times moving.
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63Almost a comedy, though not an entirely successful one: It's too acerbic to be funny and too detached to be really moving.
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60Israel's one-man new wave, Amos Gitai, surveys his nation's hardscrabble quotidian in Alila, which dallies with both Kiarostamian spirit and Altman-esque fabric, examining the intersecting lives of a dozen or so Tel Aviv residents.
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60The film's drawback, and it is a serious one, is that few of its characters wear very well. The more we see them, the less they involve us and hold our interest, a situation not helped by the bombastic, theatrical style of acting a few of the performers have felt free to employ.
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60The movie...tries to juggle too many characters at once (its title means "story plot" in Hebrew), and in several cases their connections aren't adequately explained.
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50Ultimately lacks the textural depth and emotional precision that marks the work of obvious influences here like Robert Altman, but it does offer a pungent slice of contemporary Israeli life that should prove resonant for audiences interested in the social complexities of the region.
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50Gitai's film is an interesting, if not entirely successful, adaptation of an excellent book.
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50Though absorbing enough, Alila must be counted a noble failure, if only because its efforts to follow the screwed-up lives of 12 hapless souls in a seedy Tel Aviv apartment building finally add up more to mere mimicry than commentary.