Jellyfish stuns movie audience

When A.O. Scott, film critic for The New York Times, reviewed the movie Jellyfish, he fittingly said it’s “almost as if you’re watching the arrangement of a jigsaw puzzle,” as the audience is forced to fit together subtle motifs and detailed pieces in order to grasp the meaning of the finished picture.

Viewers may or may not be puzzle enthusiasts, but regardless, Jellyfish is able to captivate its audience during its mysterious opening scene. The viewers will be perplexed and anxiously anticipate an explanation.

Jellyfish is the story of three women living in Tel Aviv, Israel, but unlike the charming protagonists one typically expects to see, these women are wide-eyed and sullen, depressed and struggling with problems they seem unaware of having.

The first character the audience meets is Batya (Sarah Adler), a young waitress and the daughter of a philanthropist mother and an unfaithful father. Neglected by her parents and disengaged from her childhood, she is dumped by her boyfriend in the opening scene and fired from her job shortly after. Batya wanders aimlessly through life until she is drawn to the sea, where she discovers a red-haired, lost, yet strangely familiar little girl, who is unable to speak.

Similarly, Joy (Ma-nenita De Latorre), a nurturing Filipino woman, is unable to speak Hebrew and finds herself alone in a foreign country working to assist a tough elderly woman, the sea separating her from her 5-year-old son.

All the while, honeymooning Keren (Gera Sandler) lies with a broken leg and broken spirit trapped in a loud, odorous hotel room. In her search for meaning, she comes across a stranger’s suicide note, which gives her an opportunity to communicate with her new husband and a chance to see the sea.

Directed by husband-and-wife duo Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen, the Israeli pair wanted to give their characters the illusion that they could control their fate, when in actuality, they’re simply floating along like jellyfish, helpless and bound to the sea.

The authenticity of this movie is what makes it work. The characters are lonely and powerless. They’re not dressed up and decorated for Hollywood, nor do they supply the audience with a sense of “happily ever after.”

Jellyfish is intriguing and overwhelming. It reveals its message so slyly that one understands the resulting image without being consciously aware of when the puzzle pieces lock into place.