Concerned Citizen [Ezrah Mudag] *** (2022, Shlomi Bertonov, Ariel Wolf, Lena Fraifeld) – Classic Movie Review 12,444

The thoughtful and intelligent 2022 Israeli drama film Concerned Citizen stars Shlomi Bertonov and Ariel Wolf as a South Tel Aviv gay couple, whose contented, comfortable lives are thrown into meltdown and chaos by one bad decision.

Writer/ director Idan Haguel’s thoughtful and intelligent 2022 Israeli drama film Concerned Citizen [Ezrah Mudag] stars Shlomi Bertonov as Ben, a liberal, bourgeois, youngish gay man living contentedly and comfortably with his nice boyfriend Raz (Ariel Wolf) in the yet to be up-and-coming district of South Tel Aviv.

Ben is an architect, seemingly well resolved, but actually a bit OCD and a little bit unbalanced. He goes to the gym but he smokes. He attends therapy sessions, which get more important and serious as the story progresses.

Ben and Raz live openly and comfortably as gay, attending Pride. They make a nice, well matched couple, and are planning to have a child by a surrogate mother. There are no real problems here. But there are cracks in Ben’s armour, and they are all about his unresolved character, full of latent contradictions, and his ambivalent attitudes to African immigrants and gentrification.

Ben decides to improve his rather brutalist neighbourhood by having a young tree planted on his street. But soon he finds that two African guys are leaning on the tree after he has previously politely asked them to desist, so he phones to report a problem to the authorities, who respond violently.

Stuck with what seemed like a good idea at the time, but was a terrible mistake he cannot reverse, Ben ends up feeling wracked by a heavy burden of guilt, damaging all aspects of his life, including his relationship with Raz.

Concerned Citizen [Ezrah Mudag] is a concerned film with good attitudes and a warm heart. Bad things come to good people, it says, and it’s shocking to see in this story how quickly this can start as a happy, optimistic situation, undermined by one action, and then escalate into a devastating personal nightmare and meltdown. This film shows this persuasively and winningly with the help of a sharp script and appealing, natural performances.

It is very good on the gay thing, but that isn’t the issue here, it’s just there. It plays like thoughtful and intelligent thriller, so there is plenty of intensity and urgency. Idan Haguel’s script and filming are both high quality.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,444

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