A scene from Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story Boomerang Kid Benjamin Braddock's spirit resounds throughout comic Hello. Michael Fox Special to the Jewish News T Ang Follow Me tracks Yoni Netanyahu's journey to Entebbe. Michael Fox Special to the Jewish News T he unexpectedly lovely documen- tary Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story reminds us what an unequivo- cal Israeli hero looks like. A portrait of the life and times of the only Israeli casualty of the stunning long-distance rescue of the Jewish hostages at Entebbe in 1976, Ari Daniel Pinchot and Jonathan Gruber's excellent film hearkens to a time before black and white blurred into a morass of gray. Israel owned the moral high ground on the world stage after the massacre of its athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, and continued to hold it as PLO operatives and sympathizers followed that "success" with a wave of inter- national hijackings and hostage-taking in the next few years. At home, however, national morale suffered from the heavy Yom Kippur War casualties, widely attributed to a lack of preparedness and poor decision-making. When Palestinian terrorists seized an Air France jet en route from Tel Aviv to Paris and diverted it to Uganda, Israel stuck to its staunch policy of not negotiating for hos- tages. Bloodshed on a massive scale appeared inevitable until the surprise hit-and-run raid by an elite squad of Israeli soldiers — under the command of 30-year-old Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu — saved 100 innocent lives and gave the nation a huge shot of pride and con- fidence. This gripping chronology of events is inter- cut with Netanyahu's compelling biography, which is largely unknown even to those with distinct memories of the exhilarating triumph at Entebbe. Follow Me is almost entirely in English and thus seems primarily aimed at American audiences, although it has no dis- cernible political agenda. The eldest of three brothers, Yoni Netanyahu was born in New York City in 1946 and raised in the new State of Israel. His father was a pro- fessor and editor-in-chief of an encyclopedia, and scholars often visited their home. During Yoni's adolescence, the family returned to the States twice for year-plus sojourns to accom- modate his father's research. "I yearn for a place that's narrow, hot, filthy:' a frustrated Yoni wrote from the comfortable 42 April 4 • 2013 Philadelphia suburb where they resided when he was 16. "A place that's mostly desert and one can scarcely find on a map of the world" It's apparent from photographs and the rec- ollections of his brothers (including Benjamin, the current prime minister), lovers and fellow soldiers that Yoni was charismatic, with the open face and striking good looks of a young Pierce Brosnan. He belonged to a generation of youth- ful nation-builders, and his first allegiance was to the State of Israel — even if it meant relinquishing certain goals. Wounded in the Six-Day War, Yoni married his sweetheart and moved to Boston to attend Harvard. But the pull of Israel, and the pull of the army, was so strong that they returned after just one year. Yoni somehow finagled his way back into the military, even though he couldn't bend or straighten his injured arm, and he was assigned to a top unit entrusted with risky and usually top-secret missions. An exceptional commitment was required, and he willingly made it even at the cost of his marriage. There are telltale clues in his letters, and in his appreciation of poetry, that Netanyahu was a multidimensional person capable not just of leadership but reflection. Surprisingly, Follow Me doesn't accentuate his lost potential for non-military contributions, nor does it invite any of the interviewees to contemplate how this deeply thoughtful, highly educated Zionist would have dealt with the invasion of Lebanon or the construction of settlements on the West Bank. Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story is a valuable, well-crafted and emotionally reso- nant addition to the video library of Israeli history, but it doesn't stray beyond its bound- aries. The ramifications of these events, and the ways in which Israel and the world have changed in the ensuing 35 years, are left to the viewer to mull. ❑ The JCC's Lenore Marwil Jewish Film Festival screens Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story at the Berman Center for the Performing Arts in West Bloomfield at 8 p.m. Sunday, April 14; at the Flint Institute of Arts in Flint at 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 7; and at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor at 5 p.m. Thursday, May 9. www.jccdet.org . he word "plastics" is never uttered in the coming-of-age dramatic comedy Hello I Must Be Going. It's kind of a shame, for Sarah Koskoff's wry, poignant screen- play evokes The Graduate in so many other ways. Both films unfold in Jewish A scene from Hello 1 Must Be Going homes headed by self-absorbed parents and located in upper- middle-class enclaves. Tellingly, none though: The couple's 19-year-old son of the assimilated characters in either (Christopher Abbott of Girls) comes movie ever says the "J" word. on to her. The two movies begin as glib Hello I Must Be Going is not exactly satires of existential angst and excru- overpopulated with characters so we ciating comedies of manners before anticipate that a kiss will turn into wading into the deeper waters where a lusty fling and then a full-blown youthful possibility can easily turn affair. As we also might expect, Amy's into compromised adult lives of quiet excitement over developing an outside desperation. activity is tempered by her ambiva- The main resemblance, though, is lence about dating a much younger a central character at loose ends who's guy and her fear that the revelation of drawn into an affair that's both poten- her secret will cost her dad a lucrative tially scandalous and strangely liberat- prospect. ing — and provides the catalyst for This is the kind of film where self-discovery and moving forward. everyone except the love-struck Melanie Lynskey (Two and a Half couple is self-deluded, tone deaf and Men) plays an ugly duckling who the object of our derision — until the became a perfectly attractive woman final reel, that is, when Amy's parents yet sees herself as a loser — at least are cast in a new light that reverses when we meet her, ensconced in our sympathies. her parents' waterfront Connecticut Lynskey's character, as well as her manse and numbly accepting a performance, walks the tightrope divorce from her Manhattan husband. between likable and annoying. Come Endearingly mousy and awkward, to think of it, the same could be said waking at noon and flopping around of Dustin Hoffman and Benjamin in a T-shirt and shorts, the 30-some- Braddock. thing Amy is a self-deprecating Like The Graduate, and unlike so female response to the shameless, many contemporary indie movies selfish man-children that populate so about attractive young people fretting many Hollywood movies. Daddy's girl over their love lives and near-term to the core, Amy nonetheless recog- futures, Hello I Must Be Going suc- nizes that something's got to give, but ceeds in convincing us that the stakes she has no clue or apparent market- — namely Amy's self-respect and char- able skill beyond a master's degree in acter, though perhaps not a career as photography (if she were to go back a gallery-quality photographer — are and finish her thesis, that is). real and worth caring about. Her parents (a relentless and great The title, incidentally, refers to the Blythe Danner and a suitably sooth- immortal song in one of the Marx ing yet ominous John Rubinstein) Brothers movies that Amy consoles are focused on landing a major new herself with on late-night TV and client so he can retire from his law which she and her father watched practice and they can go "gallivanting together when she was a child. around the globe." To them, Amy is both a concern and a nuisance who's The JCC's Lenore Marwil landed on their doorstep when they're Jewish Film Festival screens primed to embark on their carefree Hello I Must Be Going (rated golden years. R; strong language and sexual Amy's parents invite the prospec- content) at the Berman Center tive client and his family over for a for the Performing Arts in West casual dinner party, which produces Bloomfield at noon Sunday, the movie's most deft and squirm- April 14. www.jccdet.org . inducing scene. There's a silver lining to Amy's inevitable embarrassment, ❑