And these are the days of millennials. Love has become shorter than the Tishrei holidays, dating apps have long since entered their golden age, and romantic comedies, well, in the fall. For years. But precisely because of the cloak of cynicism, and the realization that the knight on the white horse, or the cooperative scooter, will no longer come, “one more story” hits the spot.
The film, created by Guri Alfi based on Omar Barak’s bestseller ‘Pressed Wedding’, tells the story of Jordan Gat (Dina Sanderson in the lead role), a successful, young and sharp journalist who dreams of holding her book with her own hands, and is willing to do anything for it. Even turning her best friend, Adam Lapid (Maayan Blum), a frustrated bachelor and hopeless romantic, into a guinea pig.
It all starts with a dim Indian restaurant. Gat meets an anonymous stranger (thousands) for an awkward, sweaty blind date and once again awkward. On his advice, she decides to crack a story that explains why she is actually a horrible, ‘shit’ entity as she defines it. So far it sounds promising, no? From this moment the plot begins to revolve around a person, seeking love as in stories, one that is almost irrelevant in our terms.
On the way to happiness, or bitter disappointment, you will also meet Jordan’s smug boss and lover, Amos (Lior Ashkenazi), in the bright corridors of the newspaper’s editorial office. Together they send a man every day on a date with another woman for a month, to marry him and get with ratings, and prove that you can fall in love anyway. No birdsong and no wandering butterflies.
Jordan and Amos thought it was the perfect crime. But then Adam, ceased to be a graceful personality by all accounts, falls in love with Maya Shaked (Daniel Gal), a brain researcher who has grown tired of men and has chosen rats. The name of the story gets complicated, and not as predictably as I thought.
Although most of us have already lost all glimmer of hope of encountering our objects of love in the hallway with hands full of books, the film managed to penetrate, even if for a moment, the steel armor. At least mine. Between the dark walls of Jordan, which tries to maintain itself even if you step on some hearts along the way, and the almost robotic naivety of a man, there will probably be love. And here, she totally wins. Without the slightest hint of squalor.
Throughout the film you will also see Adi Khabshush and Gia Beer Gurevitch in the role of the stockists who will make a man attractive to women, at least on social media. Behind the scenes are director Avi Nesher, who stars at the top of the credits under the mysterious nickname “The Man for Special Missions,” and Galit Hugi and Noa Ehrenberg, creators of the series “My Successful Sisters,” who must have added to the comedy cauldron.
Whether “One More Story” succeeds at the box office or not, this is the first romantic comedy I have felt that gives up kitsch, replacing it with a stinging roughness that gives a punch in the stomach. It will make you embarrassed, move uncomfortably in a chair and also remind you of the gaps between men and women in the job market. But there will also be catharsis, and it’s worth it all.
In conclusion – even if I was happy to see a slightly more detailed ending, still – want to see. Guri Alfi did it again.