Six years ago, Ari Nesher, the teenage son of Israeli director Avi Nesher, was killed in a hit-and-run accident while riding an electric bicycle. He died on his seventeenth birthday. The case attracted international attention not only because the victim – an up-and-coming artistic soul with several short films to his name already – was the son of a celebrity, but because the driver was apparently famous as well. Newspapers reported on the arrest and trial of a Premier League footballer, who served a prison sentence but was never convicted of manslaughter.
An unusually modern and introspective thriller directed by Ari Nesher’s sister, Tom, “Come Closer” does the job of confronting this tragedy, but not in the way you might expect: The film begins with the charismatic young man, Natty (Edo Taku), nearly being run over on a bicycle. However, in this novel, the boy survives this incident unscathed, only to be kidnapped by friends and taken to the beach for a surprise birthday party, organized by a dazzling young woman (Lea Alalouf) with ruby-red hair and iridescent splashes of color. The inner corner of each eye.
The audience may not immediately recognize this seductive character, named Eden, as the character’s sister, since the dynamic between the two seems too cozy for lovers, but also too intimate for siblings. Aiden and Natty are so close, they could almost be twins. When this wild night suddenly ends, with a slightly drunk Natty sneaking out into the night, only to be wiped out by a car while crossing the road, the staggering void left by his death is immediately felt.
It’s a brutal way to start the film—by sparing the boy’s life, only to extinguish it a few minutes later—but it’s worth noting that writer-director Tom Nesher spends no part of what follows pursuing the driver or otherwise seeking justice. “Come Closer” takes an unpredictable path, delving into Eden’s psyche as she tries to process her grief in ways that only Nesher herself would ever imagine.
In the next few scenes, the director shows Eden acting out, dressing up in her dead brother’s clothes and sneaking out to go to clubs, hoping the music will distract from her pain. Instead, she imagines Natty in front of her on the dance floor, his silhouette flashing among the dazzling lights. Eden simply cannot escape the memory of Natty, and it doesn’t help that her lover (the married father, played by Yaakov Zada Daniel) is unavailable when she needs him most.
Then comes the film’s crucial revelation: Scrolling through her brother’s social media posts, Eden learns that he’s been seeing someone named Maya, a shy, relatively normal-looking 16-year-old (Daria Rosen) unknown to the film. family. It turns out that Maya was the one Natty was seen sending secret text messages on the night of his death – suggesting that each may have reason to blame the other for what happened. If any such resentment befalls them, it remains entirely unspoken until the film’s shocking climax, which takes the two young women’s emotions to a startling extreme.
Along the way, Nesher charts a new and provocative personal arc, as Eden insists on getting as close to her beloved brother’s girlfriend as possible, even crossing into strange, uncharted territory. Early on, it was hard for Eden to believe that Natty could have developed such a strong relationship with anyone else – let alone someone – because that would seem to violate the Childhood Pact, which was forged during their parents’ divorce, as the siblings swore to . Their relationship will always come first.
What starts out as a bit of curiosity on Eden’s part quickly escalates, as the no-nonsense young woman takes Maya under her wing. But just because Eden is older doesn’t necessarily mean she’s more mature. Ultimately, one of the film’s strengths is that Nesher is strict with her on-screen persona, portraying her as a “glamorous girl” and an imperfect emotional wreck. (Meanwhile, Nesher seems somewhat blind to the privilege of the self-absorbed character, focusing instead on all the ways the world has been unfair.)
Alalouf’s casting as Eden does most of the work: With her magnetic eye makeup, the radiant star gives off early Gwyneth Paltrow vibes, crossed with the mercurial, exuberant spirit of a young Angelina Jolie (circa “Play by Heart”). Maya describes Eden’s palpable appeal as “sparkling”—Nati clearly had it as well—a quality that can be read loud and clear to the audience. Frankly, it had to be, otherwise how could one explain why Maya, who was ready to marry Aiden’s brother, fell into such a destabilizing homosexual infatuation with his sister?
If some aspects of “Come Closer” feel silly, they’re balanced by a bold, contemporary outlook on its young characters, whose appeal doesn’t need to be defined by old-fashioned labels. This is not your typical queer film, where it matters whether the two girls are “lesbian” or not. The bond that Eden and Maya share is their way of doing what the title suggests: trying to re-establish a link with the absent Natty, as they each become a substitute for the missing young man. It’s an experiment doomed to failure for both, but one worth exploring.
Along the way, Nesher has established herself as an exciting new voice (she was recently named one of Variety’s directors to watch), with original ideas about how to use music and visuals to connect us to the millennial experience. The film begins by skipping tracks on a “silly playlist,” but creates a unique sound signature as it progresses, ending with a poignant howl. The journey feels truly cathartic for Nesher and audiences alike, without ever feeling like therapy through filmmaking.