FOXTROT (2017) – Review

Despite the title of this film’s association with the dance world, its subject is not the stuff of bouncy, bubbly musicals. It concerns the struggles and challenges faced by a military family. This was explored last year in a couple of films, most notably THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE. Though sharing a similar service setting, the Middle East, this new film comes from Israel, where a stint in the military is mandatory for citizens (we learned that from the media frenzy surrounding one of last year’s biggest stars, Gal Gadot). The story bounces back from the home front to just a few hours away. Watching the drama unfold, the title makes sense. This particular dance is highly structured, with an exact number of steps which leads you right back to where you began. That’s the basics of the FOXTROT.

The film is structured much like a play in three acts or a short novel in three chapters. The first act unfolds on a warm day at a swank high-rise apartment building in Tel Aviv. There’s a knock on the door of the Feldmann’s unit. Daphna (Sarah Adler) opens the door and promptly faints. As her husband Michael (Lior Ashkenazi) looks on in stunned silence, three soldiers rush in to attend to Daphna. Later a doctor arrives, who instructs Michael to hydrate (setting his watch alarm to remind him on the hour), as a sedated Daphna slumbers. Why the commotion? An IDF rep confirms Michael’s fears. His son Jonathon, who has been a border guard in a remote area, has been killed. As his brother arrives to help, Michael tries to contact his daughter (it just goes to voicemail), then leaves to break the news to his dementia-addled mother, who can’t grasp the information. Eventually more IDF agents arrive to lay out plans for burial. A now agitated Michael disrupts the standard procedures as he insists on viewing his son’s body. As they try to calm him, more shocking news shatters the family. The story shifts to the second act as we meet Jonathan (Yonaton Shiray) a few days prior. Along with three other soldiers, he guards a gate on a dirt road out in the desert. The men try to keep warm and dry as they fight the effects of monotony. They take shifts sleeping in an old train car, which is slowing sinking into the mud, as they try to keep their broken down radio device working. When a driver does pull up to the gate, one soldier mans the tower spotlight as the other checks the driver’s identifications, while another looks the ID up on the computer. The men count the days till the much awaited transfer, but the boredom and routine begin to wear on them. It’s only a matter of time before a mistake is made and tragedy occurs. After witnessing its aftermath, we return to the Feldmanns for the third and final act. The actions of the first two acts have caused a crack in the marriage of Michael and Daphna. Over a meal and wine in the kitchen the two try to come together, hoping that they can be a couple once more. But is it much too late?

After doing terrific work mere weeks ago in 7 DAYS IN ENTEBBE, Ashkenazi confirms his skills in much more intimate film. This time he mutes the charms of the politicos in DAYS and last year’s NORMAN, for the more flawed, emotional Michael. In the film’s opening scenes he reacts with a befuddled numbness, as though his blood was replaced by Novocaine, while he tries to begin the work of burying his son. Very slowly that aloof demeanor gives way to frustration and fiery outrage. He’s an inferno that can’t be stilled by friends and families, only stoked by the bureaucracy. Late in the film, his Michael is still a man in pain, though he’s learned to cope well enough to function. Despite this he’s determined to win back his greatest love. Ashkenazi never strikes a false note in this superb performance. Though absent from much of the opening sequence, Adler proves to be a perfect sparring partner for him in the film’s final act. Her Daphna fails to tame the fury in Michael’s heart as he demands answers that no one offers. Later on, she struggles with her own sorrows while blocking Michael’s efforts to rekindle their romance. She knows his ticks and tricks, while pushing some familiar painful buttons to keep him off-balance. And all the while she is able to heighten her allure, even flirting as if on a first date. The bond between the two is too strong to ever be severed. As the center of the second act is their adored son Jonathon, played by Shiray as a young man just trying to work through the fatigue and return to his former life. He forms a warm, brotherly bond with the other soldiers as they joke, taunt, tease, and adapt to their dismal conditions. When the tensions finally fray, he’s consumed with despair and regret, while trying to push the memory out of his brain.

Director/writer Samuel Maoz has delivered a compelling story of a family in crisis told in three parts with three very distinct tones. The first, almost told entirely in the sprawling apartment, conveys the shock of loss where everyone seems to be moving at a much slower speed. As Michael awakes from his stupor it shifts into a screed against an uncaring “big brother”. The most interesting “act” may be Jonathon’s story at the border. The men trudge through mud, fiddle with frayed electronics, and consume gurgling potted meat (very unappetizing). Boredom leads one of them to roll a can across the floor each day, timing it to figure out the increasing decline of the boxcar into the mud. Before the heartbreaking tragedy, we (and the men) are given a brief respite as Jonathan relates his father’s “Last Bedtime Story”. His pen and ink illustrations are brought to life via limited animation techniques to form a moving graphic novel (though the subject may be closer to that of racy “underground comix”). This bit of whimsy heightens the horror of the nighttime “incident”. That final act is like a two-character (though another person drops in for a few moments) drama that nicely sums up the themes of the previous acts. And they do work in a bit of dancing including a lesson involving the title. For those looking for a break from the noisy studio thrillers, shuffle down to the compelling drama of FOXTROT.

4 Out of 5