Yes
After the trauma of October 7, jazz musician Y (Ariel Bronz) and his dancer wife Yasmin (Efrat Dor, "The Zookeeper's Wife") are determined to to get ahead by agreeing to the requests of Israeli power brokers and government officials. They will always say "Yes."
Laura's Review: B-
Writer/director Nadav Lapad ("Synonyms") divides his latest Israeli satire into three parts radically different in style. In Part I, 'The Good Life,' Y and Yasmin submit themselves to the depravities of the rich and powerful, Yasmin shimmying about a billionaire's party, a neon Star of David glaring from a wall, while Y thrusts his head into various punch bowls. The two leave with a rich woman (Idit Teperson), Yasmin demanding the driver stop to allow Y to puke on the side of the road before arriving at a mansion where heads are mounted on walls. They are summoned into the woman's bed chamber to bring her to orgasm by thrusting their tongues into her ears. At home, they enthusiastically express their love for one another and their baby, Noah, singing and dancing at the drop of a hat, Shai Goldman's camera dizzily spinning, zigging and zagging. Y takes Noah for a walk as Israeli men work out in a public park, machismo on display. 'Happiness is submission,' the literal bootlicker tells his child. Then onboard a billionaire's (Aleksey Serebryakov, "Nobody," "Anora") yacht which Y has arrived at with a white duck on his shoulder while his wife snorts cocaine off the backsides of a wealthy couple, IDF head Avinoam (Sharon Alexander, "Munich"), a man with bleached blonde hair and a fake tan, commissions him to write a new, pro-IDF national anthem which the billionaire will pay him for (and which the film takes pains to note is a bastardized version of a Haim Gouri poem and that his family did not agree to its use). Throughout this manic, surreal illustration of excess, news blasts about the ongoing horrors in Gaza scream out of Y's cellphone.
Lapad changes tone and style radically for Part II, 'The Path,' which finds Y dying his own hair blonde before driving out of Tel Aviv while pointedly noting that checkpoint guards can tell an Israeli from an Arab and that he won't be stopped while they will be. He is picked up by an old girlfriend, Leah ("Ahed's Knee's" casting director, Naama Preis), who will drive him across Israel to view Gaza from the Hill of Love, a place, she tells him, picnickers go to watch the bombs drop. It is here that Y verbally recognizes the shallowness of his life in Tel Aviv, telling Leah that he would leave everything for her. She, however, believes they would never work out, not finding him serious. In a stunning scene, Leah recounts the horrors of October 7, wrapping with the exchange 'But you don't know what it's like to be a Palestinian,' a sentiment returned by the Israeli. Part III, 'The Night,' finds Y returning to Yasmine, who has fought her Gym Manager (Asaf Jonas, "The Swimmer") for her pay in his absence. She is furious and attacks him, agreeing only to perform the new anthem in order to get their money, then part forever.
"Yes" is both an incendiary satire of a country spiraling into moral decay and an indulgent film often lacking clarity. One can almost feel its maker descending into madness. But if at first Lapad's film overwhelms, it begins to come together, each part informing the one which preceded it.
Robin's Review: B-
Tel Aviv couple, Y (Ariel Bronz) struggles as a jazz musician while his wife, Yasmin (Efrat Dor), sings, dances and teaches aerobics. They take any gig offered to make ends meet. Then, he gets a lucrative commission to write a new Israeli national anthem following the horror of 7 October in "Yes!"
The hard-working pair has a baby, Noah, born 8 October 2023, so they have to work hard to raise the child. This means they will take any gig, no matter how humiliating or debasing, as long as it pays.
Then, a wealthy Russian oligarch living in Israel offers Y a lot of money to convert a controversial poem into a new Israeli national anthem that praises the IDF and the destruction of Gaza. This becomes an angels versus devils battle for Y and Yasmin.
Y's inner conflict drives him to cross Israel to the "Hill of Love" overlooking the ongoing destruction of Gaza. His guide and ex-lover, Leah (Naama Preis), works for the IDF and tries to help Y with his struggle, ethically and morally, in writing the anthem.
At over 2 and a half hours long, the problem I have with "Yes" is that filmmaker Navad Lapid thinks that every frame of his "satire" is pure gold and it deserves to be seen. It does not. Some judicious editing and reinvention of the story narrative is needed. (And, maybe, 30 minutes shorter.) Instead of satire, I found it merely ironic in its ambiguity of telling the story.
The film, shot in 16mm film, has a suitable graininess to put the viewers in the picture. Y's journey, though, does not resolve the conflict over Gaza and the brutality against its people. Instead, it tries to present both sides and that is a lot harder to do.
Kino Lorber released "Yes" in New York on 3/27/26. It is available digitally on 6/18/26.
