Stephen Dorff continues his somewhere-instigated comeback in this odd-couple tale about a downed Israeli fighter pilot who takes a perilous trek across war-torn Lebanon with a 10-year-old Palestinian refugee (Abdallah El Akal).
Eran Riklis’ road movie – its title means ‘olive’ – neatly juxtaposes the beauty of the landscape with the enmities it engenders, locating an optimism in the central relationship that subsequent history (as explored in Waltz With Bashir) would cruelly dash.
You wonder, though, if the ultra-specific backdrop is really just a smokescreen for the sort of heart-tugging man-and-boy yarn that tends to tickle gong-givers this time of year.
