The Bubble [Ha-Buah] **** (2006, Ohad Knoller, Yousef ‘Joe’ Sweid, Daniella Wircer) – Classic Movie Review 13,430

The 2006 Israeli romantic drama film The Bubble follows the lives of a group of young friends in Tel Aviv, nicknamed ‘The Bubble’ for being a city supposedly remote from war and turmoil.

Love, life and death in Tel Aviv are in the glare of Eytan Fox’s spotlight in the beautiful and moving, actually heart-breaking, 2006 Israeli romantic drama film The Bubble, telling an intimate story with an epic scale feel.

The Bubble [Ha-Buah] (2006) follows the lives of a group of young friends in Tel Aviv, nicknamed ‘The Bubble’ for being a relatively peaceful city, isolated from the rest of the country and supposedly remote from war and turmoil.

The main central story is of two men who fall in love, one Noam (Ohad Knoller), a young Israeli reservist, and the other a young Palestinian man, Ashraf (Yousef ‘Joe’ Sweid).

Noam, a young Israeli soldier serving in the reserve forces, meets a handsome Palestinian young man called Ashraf at a checkpoint. After Noam misplaces his ID card at the checkpoint, Ashraf shows up on the doorstep of the apartment that Noam shares with a gay man, flamboyant restaurateur Yali (Alon Friedman), and a straight woman, would-be fashion designer Lulu (Daniella Virtzer). This moment changes all of their lives.

Noam works as a clerk in a record shop. Ashraf, a closeted gay and jihad extremist, is smuggled into Tel Aviv, pretending to be Jewish, to be a waiter at Yali’s restaurant. Ashraf’s family refuse to accept his sexuality, and tragic events in his family lead to further tragedy,

Eytan Fox tells his strongly personally felt story with urgency, intelligence and compassion, passion and anguish too, keeping his characters vibrantly real, and also keeping the title city as a main character in the drama. Ohad Knoller and Yousef ‘Joe’ Sweid give excellent, persuasive, powerful performances. The film lulls you into enjoying the sense of a happy place, the actual and metaphorical Bubble, proposing an idea of a better way of life and a more tolerant world, but has a devastating, haunting conclusion.

Director: Eytan Fox.

Writers: Gal Uchovsky (screenplay) and Eytan Fox (screenplay).

Stars: Ohad Knoller, Yousef ‘Joe’ Sweid, Daniella Wircer.

The cast

The cast are Ohad Knoller as Noam, Yousef ‘Joe’ Sweid as Ashraf, Daniella Virtzer as Lulu, Alon Friedman as Yali, Zohar Liba as Golan, Ruba Blal as Rana, Shredy Jabarin as Jihad, and Lior Ashkenazi as himself.

Eytan Fox

Eytan Fox is one of Israel’s leading directors. His films include Yossi & Jagger, Walk on Water, The Bubble, Yossi, Cupcakes and his first English-language film, Sublet (2020).

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,430

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