This is a movie where you keep waiting for something to happen....but it never does! You keep waiting for the plot to engage you, draw you in...but it never does! One can only wonder what the actual point of the movie is....but one never does as the movie is totally pointless! A waste of almost 2 hours to watch a movie about nothing!

Sublet (2020) was co-written and directed by Eytan Fox.

John Benjamin Hickey plays Michael, a middle-aged travel writer for the New York Times. Michael visits Tel Aviv as part of his work.

He sublets an apartment from Tomer (Niv Nissim). Michael invites Tomer to stay in the apartment, and Tomer becomes his guide to the real Tel Aviv.

Michael is gay. Tomer is young and bisexual. The plot revolves around whether their friendship will turn to intimacy.

I enjoyed this film. The actors are excellent, and I learned more about non-tourist Tel Aviv.

We saw this movie virtually as part of the always outstanding Rochester Jewish Film Festival. The movie has a tepid IMDb rating of 6.9. I thought that it was better than that, and rated it 8.

I tend not to watch Israeli films for a number of reasons but made an exception in this case. I remembered why not quite soon into the film. There were the usual cultural appropriations; the "Israeli food" that was shown in the film was actually a bowdlerised form of Palestinian food, Palestinians were mostly absent, criminals were dark-skinned. The theme of the film was interesting enough for me to plough on though and it was worth it.

The plot? Well, would even a bohemian student have forgotten he was renting his flat out? OK, there had to be a device for getting Michael and Tomer together so that was as good as any, I guess. And in the circumstances of the two disparate guys getting to know each other something similar had to drive the story on.

The film did touch on some themes that are important and the one that struck me was how people change. Michael told Tomer and Daria that "in his day" people protested and had changed the world; they didn't run away. However, what an utter stuffed shirt he had become in later life wearing pyjamas and shocked at Grindr. Surrogacy and fidelity were also touched upon, not in any profound way but more as part of a story that explained some of the events of the film.

I have to admit that the revelation of the tragedy during the visit to the kibbutz didn't affect me emotionally as it appeared to have done to some reviewers. I was glad to see the culmination of our odd couple's relationship and the film ended in the way it should have - Michael would never have unwound enough for any spontaneous moves after the events of the previous night. And I got an impression that Tomer's tears were for his lost father which was a nice touch at the departure. Seeing him ride his stolen bike again at the end was a liberating experience for the audience and for him; I liked this ending.

So, despite my misgivings as mentioned above, I quite enjoyed this film. It was the right length and well enough constructed to hold the interest throughout.