‘Golda’ is both personal and political

“Golda,” released this past Friday, is as informative as it is emotional.

A biopic of former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (Helen Mirren) the film focuses on her navigation of the Yom Kippur War, which lasted from Oct. 6 to Oct. 25, 1973.

“Golda” summarizes the main events throughout the 19 days of war, beginning with the mobilization of Egyptian and Syrian troops and concluding with the formal peace declaration between former Egyptian President, Anwar El -Sadat, and Golda Meir.

In a piece that deals with such a compact part of history, the structure of the film alternates between political history and Meir’s personal struggles with lymphoma and anxiety.

The narrative decision to portray Meir from both introspective and socio-political lenses highlights the isolation her character feels. Meir comes across as a strong, decisive woman when leading her cabinet through war tactics, but the film visibly shows the toll the war takes on her through her numerous lymphoma treatments and anxiety attacks about the increasing number of Israeli casualties.

While the film is detail-heavy regarding the war schematics, the moments when Meir is alone hold the most emotional weight. Without this crucial narrative element, the film runs the risk of feeling more documentary-style rather than a historical drama.

In terms of setting, the majority of the film consistently takes place between council rooms and Meir’s personal residence, with the exception of a brief scene toward the end of the film where Meir travels to visit troops in Egypt. Meir constantly meets with heads of defense as well as political leaders like Henry Kissinger (Liev Schreiber) in her own home. For a war film, there is very little depiction of action, with the dialogue between Meir and her cabinet members being the primarymain device to convey what is actually happening on the front.

Because the film is so dialogue-heavy and the setting so stagnant, repetition is a central element of this entire film. From a macro level, the constant war council meetings comprise the majority of the central plot points, while simple habits, like Meir’s smoking in nearly every scene, are micro-incidents of redundancy that inform the neurotic side of Meir’s character.

The main reason why the simplicity of the setting and the repetition of material do not feel drawn out is the brilliantly nuanced performance that Mirren gives.

Mirren navigates Meir’s character with an empathy that makes each scene feel new. In an interview with the Times of Israel, the film’s director, Guy Nattiv, said “her humor, her emotions, her intelligence, her strength and her humanity … Helen brought [these layers] to Golda, and Golda had that.”

The entire momentum of the film rests on Mirren’s subtle performance. There is a duality to Meir’s character, for she acts as the rigid prime minister before her cabinet — yet also feels deeply responsible for each death in private.

One of the most emotional scenes in the film is a close-up of Mirren’s face when she discovers that her secretary’s son was one of the soldiers killed in battle. The juxtaposition of the secretary, who cries uncontrollably at the news, and Meir, who sheds a quick tear before leaving the room, encapsulates the tightness found within this entire film.

Wound-up emotions that barely have the opportunity for release run rampant throughout “Golda,” yet, when statically analyzed, it is Mirren’s performance that delivers this emotional compactness, not the plot.

The plot of the film is simplistic — it is first and foremost a war drama, and the details regarding Israel’s international relations and military strategies are presented in a clear, informed manner. However, as far as character-to-character relationships are concerned, there is little emotional buildup between any group of people in particular.

On one hand, this is in part due to the isolation of Meir’s character, and the necessity to depict her as the only woman with political power, yet with a lack of military experience. Despite this, Meir’s character does feel surface-level for the majority of the film.

There is one scene in which Meir speaks to Kissinger about her childhood trauma of being raised Jewish in Ukraine, and the danger of that lifestyle. More scenes like this would have created a deeper understanding of Meir’s background, but the majority of Meir’s screen time focuses on her isolation and the pressures of being prime minister.

The narrative of the war scenes feels much stronger and substantial than the introspective character scenes, and this is in part because of the original structure of the script.

Nattiv told the Times of Israel that the script was 80% war movie and 20% Golda — but pitched the film to be 80% Golda and 20% war. With this in mind, it is clear that the film was initially designed to be a detailed war film, as the militaristic side of the story is more intricately woven than the personal story of “Golda.”

Mirren’s acting elevated the complexity of Meir, who otherwise would have seemed flat because of the repetitive nature and design of her character.

Ultimately, “Golda” is effective at conveying the details of the Yom Kippur War from a historical perspective, and it is Mirren’s acting that infuses the life, emotion and complexity into the film.