J Paul Johnson
Come Closer, Israel’s official submission for the 2025 Academy Awards and winner of the Viewpoints Award at Tribeca, may be born of tragedy, but its youthful spirit and indomitable energy are undeniable. So too is its palpable sexual energy, generated mostly by the charisma of its young lead actor, Lia Elalouf, as a troubled young woman whose grief finds release in a new and unexpected romance. L.A.-born and Jerusalem-educated writer-director Tom Nesher’s first feature film, inspired by the tragedy of her younger brother’s death, captures the unpredictable paths both grief and love can take with a sure, sweet confidence.
At the film’s open, young Nati (Ido Tako) is looking forward to celebrating his birthday with his girlfriend, Maya (Darya Rosenn), until he is suddenly abducted. The kidnappers are his friends, led by his sister Eden (Elalouf), who pushes him off a short cliff into a pool of water; that’s her, and their, idea of a birthday surprise, and they all join in for a night of carousing on the beach. Eden is free-spirited, devil-may-care, and doesn’t take no for an answer. Nati has little choice but to join in and postpone his plans with Maya.
It’s early the next morning when tragedy strikes—forgive the spoiler, but it’s revealed in the film’s logline and occurs in the first few minutes—as Nati is struck down by a speeding car and soon dies from his injuries. In her grief, Eden lashes out at her parents, has sex with her boss, wears Nati’s clothes, and plunges into darkness and chaos. The two were so close, she believed, that they had no secrets from each other, sharing everything
Except that they did not: Eden discovers Nati has a girlfriend he never told her about and was, to her surprise, a serious and excellent student with career ambitions. Eden channels her grief into what becomes a clandestine investigation, stalking and studying Maya, a sweet, studious and naive girl who knows Eden only by her outsize reputation for drugs, sex, and partying.
What begins as surveillance turns into seduction. To crack Maya’s reserve, Eden turns on the charm, assuring her her motives are genuine. Desperate to learn more about Nati and Maya’s relationship—and in an attempt to reclaim the primacy of her own relationship with her deceased brother—Eden takes Maya under her wing, to nightclubs, the beach, on outings, sharing with her a life that the buttoned up Maya has never seen.
Maya is, of course, grieving too. Her love for Nati was true, their plans for the future serious, and now that’s all gone. Her bearings unmoored, Maya finds herself falling for Eden, and Nasher charts this slowly growing passion with confidence. At one point, after a night of clubbing, Maya’s attraction to Eden seems like it’s reached an apex. Together in bed, the two share a brief, chaste kiss: smitten Maya stares at Eden, who simply says, “Shall we go to sleep?” and turns to her side. Maya’s confusion, bordering on exasperation, is priceless.
The unlikely relationship that develops between the two grieving young women, one wild and troubled, the other straightlaced and modest, develops so organically and convincingly it never feels even in the least contrived. Nasher’s script and direction carefully guide the two characters through several stages of development that lead to their mutual attraction, even if it’s clear it can’t hold. It’s clear that the goal of the two young women’s mutual attraction is never to titillate; the cinematic depiction of their passion registers as organic and natural, as do all of the complications that arise therefrom.
The two co-leads are perfect in their roles. As Eden, Elalouf, in her first feature film role, is stunning. The camera simply adores her, and even as exasperating and troublesome as her character is, there’s no denying the gravitational pull of her attraction. Men at the club, boys on the beach, her own brother’s grieving girlfriend—to be in Eden’s orbit is to be attracted to her. Elalouf pulls this complex feat off while also imbuing her Eden with an earnestness and sincerity that have you pulling for her. For her role she has already won Best Actress at the Jerusalem Film Festival and Best Leading Actress at The Ophirs, Israel’s Academy Awards. There is certainly much, much more to come for such a promising, perhaps even generational, talent.
Rosenn, meanwhile, is equally convincing in a less demonstrative role. Although she is in real life a couple of years older than Elalouf, Rosenn channels her energies into Maya’s youth and naïveté, and her performance and costuming chart a persuasive transition from demure student to the more confidently sexual and passionate young adult she becomes. She’s remarkable at expressing a wide array of emotions with her eyes and expressions, from shock and fear to arousal and disgust. Given that there are, other than Eden and Maya, only peripheral characters onscreen beside them, the two young leads are given the responsibility of carrying the whole film, and neither disappoints. They are both, simply, great.
The problem Maya and Eden face is where to go from here. Can they co-exist in a future without the brother and boyfriend they both still grieve? Nati had plans to travel to distant beach in the Sinai desert, but there’s little more there than a dream of what might have been. And for all her growth, Eden still is volatile and impetuous, someone who can endanger herself and others on a whim. Come Closer isn’t naive about its young couple’s prospects; rather, it’s even-minded and level-headed, finding in its brief timeline a means for two young women to find in each other some solace.
That it was created in the wake of its director’s own personal tragedy and in the context of the ongoing conflict and Israel and Gaza makes Come Closer’s sweet romance even more affecting. But with her first feature effort, Nesher and her collaborators—especially co-leads Elalouf and Rosenn—have made a work of art that transcends the specifics of its time and place.
