Yossi

A decade after Yossi (Ohad Knoller) watched his soldier lover perish in action in Yossi & Jagger, Israeli director Eytan Fox catches up with the character, now a paunchy cardiologist who lives alone. After a botched operation and an emotionally fraught chance encounter with his late lover's unsuspecting mother, he is urged to take a sabbatical from the hospital where he works and get out of Tel Aviv. Heading towards Sinai, Yossi picks up some soldiers who have missed their bus and is sufficiently taken by their rowdy banter and the equanimity of openly gay Tom (Oz Zehavi) to take a room in their hotel in the seaside resort of Eilat. Having shocked conservative compatriots with his original drama, Fox is keen to show how attitudes have changed and, consequently, is less combative in allowing Yossi to come to terms with his loss, get over a recent online humiliation and accept the affection being offered by the macho but cultured Tom. The movie is deftly played (Knoller steps back into the character of Yossi with ease), sensitively photographed, thoughtfully empathetic and encouragingly reflective.