Guy Lodge Film CriticCertain films aren’t made for elevator pitches. “Arthouse ‘Gilmore Girls’ meets ‘The Fault in Our Stars'” would be one way to describe the array of familiar elements in “Asia,” while erasing any hint of the rare delicacy and emotional acuity with which Israeli writer-director Ruthy Pribar assembles them.
In her unassumingly lovely debut feature, Pribar tackles thorny mother-daughter relations, terminal disease anguish and two generations of frustrated sexual yearning in a trim 85 minutes, without once shortcutting to easy sentimentality or high-pitched melodrama.
She’s not alone on that balance beam, of course: A pair of exquisitely pitched, mutually reflective performances by Alena Yiv and Shira Haas (fresh from her.
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