Legendary star Dame Helen Mirren stars as Golda Meir, Israel’s fourth prime minister, in this drama set during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
How to watch Golda in New Zealand
Golda is screening in New Zealand cinemas now.
What is Golda about?
Directed by Oscar-winning Israeli filmmaker Guy Nattiv (Skin) and written by Nicholas Martin (Florence Foster Jenkins), Golda makes the smart decision not to try and cover all of Meir’s life, instead focussing on the events of October 1973, when a coalition of Arab nations led by Syria and Egypt sprung a surprise attack on Israel. This was an attempt to rest back territory such as the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula that had been occupied by Israel since 1967’s Six Day War, but Israel had already voted to cede the territory back to… you know what? The Wikipedia article is right here. Have at it.
The film follows the steely Meir through the course of the crisis and beyond, as she contends with the war, tricky international diplomacy, and internal dissent.
The cast of Golda
Revered actress Helen Mirren is Golda Meir; Camille Cottin is Lou Kaddar, her private secretary; Rami Heuberger is Moshe Dayan, Israel’s Minister of Defence; Rotem Keinan is Mossad director Zvi Zamir;
Lior Ashkenazi is IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General David “Dado” Elazar; Dvir Benedek is Director of Military Intelligence Major General Eli Zeira; Ed Stoppard is Israeli Air Force Commander Major General Benny Peled; and Liev Schreiber is United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, which is a hell of a glow-up.
Golda trailer
What are the critics saying about Golda?
The consensus is pretty middling, to be honest. Over at Rotten Tomatoes, the general opinion is that the film “…never amounts to much more than a passable history lesson presented in largely underwhelming biopic form.” And, of course, given current events, the film can’t help but be divisive.
