Footnote (2011)
Average Rating: 7.7/10
Reviews Counted: 83
Fresh: 75 | Rotten: 8
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 8.2/10
Critic Reviews: 32
Fresh: 29 | Rotten: 3
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 23,080
My Rating
Movie Info
Eliezer and Uriel Shkolnik are both eccentric professors, who have dedicated their lives to their work in Talmudic Studies. The father, Eliezer, is a stubborn purist who fears the establishment and has never been recognized for his work. While his son, Uriel, is an up-and-coming star in the field, who appears to feed on accolades, endlessly seeking recognition. Then one day, the tables turn. When Eliezer learns that he is to be awarded the Israel Prize, the most valuable honor for scholarship in
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Cast
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Shlomo Bar-Abba
Eliezer Shkolnik -
Lior Ashkenazi
Uriel Shkolnik -
Alisa Rosen
Yehudit Shkolnik -
Alma Zak
Dikla Shkolnik -
Daniel Markovich
Josh Shkolnik -
Micah Lewensohn
Yehuda Grossman -
Yuval Scharf
Noa - Newspaper Reporte... -
Nevo Kimchi
Yair Fingerhaut -
Alma Zack
Dikla Shkolnik -
Albert Iluz
Dvir Oded -
Shlomo Bar-Aba
Eliezer Shkolnik -
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Footnote Trailer & Photos
All Critics (83) | Top Critics (32) | Fresh (75) | Rotten (8)
"Footnote" deals with ambition, isolation, the dangers of too much success and the inevitable gap between generations.
Top CriticFootnote requires little knowledge of Judaism and its texts. Rather, it's about the complications of love, guilt, and rage.
Israeli writer-director Joseph Cedar's tale of two Talmudic scholars set in present-day Jerusalem, while not exactly side-splitting, is quietly riotous. And, yes, the guffaws are bittersweet.
At times, the film seems to turn into a microfiche machine, with the story's sections divided by frames thumping past us as if propelled by a researcher, eyes scanning.
A droll, deadpan satire of the professional contempt and personal rancor that breeds in any narrow field.
Footnote is a film about the nature of truth, about sacrifice, hubris, hypocrisy. It's nothing short of brilliant.
Cedar remains in stylistic second gear for the rest of the film, and interest fizzles out long before the finish line.
A dry academic tragi-comedy about academic blackballing, scholarship and taking stock of how you've spent, or misspent, your life.
It remains painful to live in a world where Jack and Jill makes it into commercial cinemas and this superb Israeli film gets kicked into the underbrush.
Footnote is lighthearted in tone -- which is key to its success, even though it deals with serious family issues and also spotlights the stubbornness and hypocrisy of academic world.
The Coen Brothers must be ticked that they didn't think of the idea first.
...a drama about the internecine skirmishes - actual and metaphoric - fought between fathers and sons that might fairly be called Shakespearean.
An intriguing and demanding film despite its flaws.
The premise enables Cedar to spoof academic infighting and professorial egomania even as he dissects a love-hate blood connection that has been fraught with tension and mistrust ever since Abraham was willing to slay Isaac.
Cedar is mostly interested in the father-son dynamics, and he cast excellent actors.
While neither father or son are likeable characters, Cedar still manages to make us care about what will happen to their tumultuous relationship. The end result is a gratifying treat.
Footnote has moments of humor and moments of pathos, but they often seem to be coming from different movies.
A dense and complex piece of filmmaking, made manageable through the warm and totally compelling performances of the two lead actors.
"Footnote" has one of the most satisfying scenes I've seen in years.
A funny, sorrowful, sharp-witted look at ambition, ego, and fathers and sons.
... a bitter and mordant comedy that evokes winces instead of laughs ...
Light yet heavy comedy/drama no footnote in Israeli cinema
Ultimately it's about how fathers and sons manage the added complexity in their relationship of professional rivalry - and the potential for deep wounds to be inflicted by one upon the other
It's an interesting premise with an equally interesting structure and the use of music, injecting high drama alongside a curious cat and mouse curiosity, gives the film a unique slant
This is a film that skims the surface layer of politesse from human interactions and reveals us as the blustering bundles of ego that we all are.
Audience Reviews for Footnote
Super Reviewer
"Footnote" is also directed and acted like a short. Everything about it screams short. Why it was nominated for a Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar I will never understand. Thank God it lost (to the vastly superior "A Separation"). The corruption in the Foreign-Language category is legendary. It appears that nominations are simply auctioned off to the highest bidders.
Cedar's film does have interesting content. As a short, it would have been great. A father and son, both Talmudic scholars in present-day Israel, have a rivalry of sorts. The father grows quite bitter as he watches his son win far more accolades than he ever did. The father believes the new generation's scholarship is less serious and not truly focused on the Talmud.
The father wins a highly prestigious award that he has pined after for decades, giving him a tremendous feeling of vindication. But the nominating committee calls the son in for a private meeting, where they say that the award was really intended for the son. They want the son himself to break the news to the father. I won't reveal what the son does.
One more complication develops, the details of which I won't get into. But still there's just not enough going on for a feature film. The directorial style is also quite flat and bare-bones. Only one sequence in the entire was fully written. Everything else is sketchy, like the script never got past the outline phase. The cinematography is completely pedestrian.
Because this short was stretched to feature length, there's quite a bit of repetition and slackness as well, as scenes are forced to go on longer than they need to. "Footnote" to me feels like a good film-school project. It demonstrates that Cedar has the talent to become a real filmmaker. I hope someday he does develop into one, learning how to write a fully developed screenplay and how to do cinematography.
Super Reviewer
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- Eliezer Shkolnik: There are things more important than the truth.
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- Uriel Shkolnik: It will kill him.
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Foreign Titles
- Footnote (DE)
- Footnote (UK)
There are moments in Footnote that resonate with any academic. The satire of the cramped rooms and the highfalutin conversations in academic babble is sharp, biting, and accurate. This also has the distinction of being one of the few films about academe that doesn't include a relationship between a teacher and a student, and for that it deserves applause. Not limited to satirizing the academy, the film is also about fathers and sons and the tough love fathers sometimes bone-headedly think their sons need. This plot is poignant and universal.
What bothers me about the film are the ending, where I though we needed more clarity, and the film's misogyny. The women are all either idiots or supporters, and when Eliezer's wife finds out the film's primary secret, her response is merely to support more. The female characters lack any agency in the home or the profession, and while it's true that some sections of academe are miniature boys' clubs, the film doesn't seem to level its satire bullseye at the phallocentrism of the academy.
Overall, there's a lot to like about this film, but where it fails, it fails big.