Noodle (2007)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Kid melodramas can have very different destinies - they can reach (seldom) the sublime, and they can easily fall into cheap melodrama. It is probably the most wide spread mistake of people doing such movies to rely too much on the kid actors. These are usually good and catch the attention as long as they are on screen, but unless they have the talent and personality of a Shirley Temple or Dakota Fanning they quickly fade into forgetting.To their credit the makers of 'Noodle' did not make this mistake. Their Chinese kid-actor does his work, but is not made to be overwhelmingly cued, nor is this immigration light mode comedy completely based on him. On the contrary, the other principal characters in the story are quite interesting, especially the two sisters played by the Hollywood-stricken (but not very successful there) Miri Avital and by Anat Waxman, one of the best actress on Israeli screens and scenes nowadays.Neither does the film completely avoid the flaws of the commercial Israeli cinema, and the story line although intriguing as a premise lacks somehow credibility, and cannot avoid a deus-ex-machina solution to the final climax. Overall however the film works even better than some of the recent light-hearted comedies I have seen coming from Hollywood or other established cinema imperia.

Noodle (2007) is an Israeli film directed and co-written by Ayelet Menahemi. Mili Avital plays the elegant Miri Calderone, an El Al flight attendant you has been twice widowed by war. Her life isn't empty, but it's emotionally sterile. Her Chinese maid rushes out of the house one day, and disappears. Miri and her sister find themselves caring for the young Chinese son of the Chinese woman. (The boy, whom they call "Noodle," is played well by BaoQi Chen.) He speaks no English and no Hebrew, and neither of the sisters speak Chinese.The results are predictable, but the film has unexpected depth. Neither Mili, nor her sister, nor her sister's estranged husband, are cardboard figures. Each has a story and each has a life. Some of the supporting cast, especially the woman who played the immigration officer, are excellent. The film is well edited and has good production values.One aspect of the movie surprised me. It could have been set in any developed country, not just Israel. Nothing about the situation--other than the manner in which Miri lost her husbands-- made this a film stamped, "Made in Israel." Whether this is good news or bad news depends on your outlook.This film will work well on DVD, although we saw it at the Dryden Theatre as part of the excellent Rochester Jewish Film Festival. It's worth seeing if you're in the mood for a solid movie that's more heartwarming than dramatic.

The film has a charming atmosphere of everyday and "it could really happen" even though it certainly is a fairy tale and there are several almost impossible elements in the plot - security issues, how children are normally treated, and time discrepancies. The shots are well planned and acting is natural. Somehow the lighting always seems natural. I especially liked the quick conversations with Gila and her friends, and Gila's daughter's sababa-comments. Many scenes were fresh - not as predictable as you'd expect. As always, the behind scenes bonus material on the DVD is worth watching. This movie leaves you in a good mood!

Okay, the movie suffers from several absurdities as the plot is forced forward; but no more absurdities than you generally find in an adventure movie. And it is an adventure movie, although the adventure is not about transporting a diamond across the treacherous Andes but about finding security for a stranded boy amid the frustrations of bureaucracy and the distractions of job and family. (One of the absurdities is that when necessary, a job such as gym teaching seems to pose no obstacle to scheduling or financing a quick plane ride across the world.) The usually glamorous Mili Avital and the usually super-cute Anat Waxman look as if they were willing to forgo a layer or two of make-up to look realistically middle-class. The boy actor whose believability is essential retains that believability while leaving no scene unstolen.