Mr. Movie: Great acting helps a tedious story in ‘Fill the Void’
Shira lives in modern day Israel. She is 18 and from an Orthodox family. Shira has dreams of marriage and has even found the man she believes is the one for her. Then her sister dies in childbirth and her mother pushes Shira to marry her sister’s husband and help raise their child.
Rama Burshtein writes and directs Fill the Void. The movie’s claim to fame is that Burshtein was the first Orthodox Jewish woman to make a movie that had a fairly wide release. Her movie — via excellent acting and a beautifully crafted movie — introduces us to a culture and traditions we know little about.
On the negative, the film moves too slowly and drags in places to the point of tedium, and Fill the Void doesn’t.
Battelle Film Club
All films begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Battelle Auditorium on the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory campus in Richland.
Tickets: Cost is $4 for adults and $2 for kids, or $14 for all seven films. Admission is free for Washington State University Tri-Cities students. Tickets are available at the door. Non-English films are subtitled.
Online: For more information, go to www.tricityfilmclub.org.
Fill the Void
Director: Rama Burshtein
Stars: Hadas Yaron, Yiftach Klein, Irit Sheleg
Mr. Movie rating: 3 stars
Rated PG for mature themes. It’s playing at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 19 at the Battelle Auditorium in Richland.
5 stars to 4 1/2 stars: Must see on the big screen.
4 stars to 3 1/2 stars: Good film, see it if it’s your type of movie.
3 stars to 2 1/2 stars: Wait until it comes out on DVD.
2 stars to 1 star: Don’t bother.
This story was originally published February 17, 2016 at 3:03 PM with the headline "Mr. Movie: Great acting helps a tedious story in ‘Fill the Void’."