“Golda” Is a Tense Snapshot of the 1973 Yom Kippur War

There has been plenty of commentary this year about the film “Golda” starring Helen Mirren as the titular character. Much of that commentary so far has been on whether Mirren, as a non-Jew, should have been cast in the first place. That all goes out the window at the moment when Mirren first speaks as Meir in the new film.

“In my day, they stood for the Prime Minister,” an irritated Meir says in the opening minutes of the film as she enters a room full of Army men. Later, we see her sitting in 1974 in front of the Agranat Commission, which is investigating her role in the failures of the Israeli government to anticipate the surprise attacks by Egypt and Syria on Yom Kippur in 1973.

The gravity of the Yom Kippur War is apparent on Mirren’s face throughout the film, knowing that one way or another, human lives will end with her next decision. 

The hearings bookend “Golda” —  the bulk of the film is a tense snapshot of the 19 turbulent days of the Yom Kippur War as experienced by Israel’s fourth Prime Minister,  taking you into the war rooms where strategy is concocted. There’s a deepening crisis in the war room, and Meir is left to make many of the ultimate decisions. The gravity of the Yom Kippur War is apparent on Mirren’s face throughout the film, knowing that one way or another, human lives will end with her next decision. 

While the Arganat Commission took on the job of analyzing the of the war, viewers of “Golda” are left with little time to catalog any mistakes Meir and her advisors might be making. The pacing of the film is quick, but the lingering close-ups of Mirren as the worried, often smoke-wreathed Meir magnify the pressures she was under. Although the film does not delve into Meir’s early life, Mirren took it upon herself to do so. And it shows. Mirren read books and watched a lot of videos of Meir in preparation for the role.  “I always find playing these characters, I like to look at their life up to the age of 20. It’s really how they were as children,” she explained in a video from “Golda’s” premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, before the SAG-AFTRA strike. “It’s those experiences that form you.”

Among the highlights of the 100-minute film is Liev Schreiber as U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. The middle-of-the-night phone conversation with Meir early on in the war is one of the best-performed scenes of the film. Meir explains that Israel had already lost 500 tanks, a third of the Air Force and 30 Phantom fighter jets, and that she could have launched a preemptive strike but didn’t. Kissinger responds, “Watergate is sweeping through Washington like a firestorm, Golda. Nixon is a lame duck.” Meir fires back, “If the Arabs defeat us with Soviet weapons, what message does that send to the free world, Henry?”

The Journal spoke with “Golda” director Guy Nattiv about his suspenseful drama. He spoke about the stark contrast between reactions to the film by the Israeli press and foreign press. 

“I think that some people from the press that are not Jewish and non-Israeli, I don’t think that they understand the nuances that we as Jews understand, so it’s kind of like different points of view in a way, but you can feel that it aggravates a lot of attention, which is cool,” Nattiv told the Journal.  

Taking on real-life subjects and making films that create a lot of conflicting and aggravating attention is part of Nattiv’s aim. One of Nattiv’s favorite film directors of all time, Oliver Stone, is well-known for diving head first into controversial real-life subjects, with his acclaimed films “Platoon,” “Born on the Fourth of July” and “JFK.”

Nattiv said that “Golda” wasn’t made with a specific target audience in mind. Being filmed entirely in English certainly opens the film to a wider audience. 

In addition to Meir, audiences will come away from the film with a curiosity about Meir’s longtime confidante and executive assistant Lou Kaddar (played by French actress Camille Cottin). Their history isn’t explicitly discussed on screen, but the chemistry between Mirren and Cottin says much about the real-life relationship between the two. 

One of the most harrowing scenes in the entire film involves Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan. Without revealing any spoilers, when watching the film, viewers should remember that the actor portraying Dayan, Israeli actor Rami Heuberger, is not a native English speaker. Heuberger nails the spectrum of emotions that Dayan must have felt while enmeshed in the war.  Nattiv said it took about 70 takes over the course of two filming days to get a certain scene just right. Looking back, Nattiv said it was “the most emotionally-challenging scene” to shoot. 

Nattiv said that Meir’s life lends itself well to a miniseries treatment. In 2021, it was announced that Barbra Streisand is producing a miniseries based on the book “Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel” by Francine Klagsbrun. Although there have not been any major updates about that miniseries’ current status, “Unorthodox” actress Shira Haas is reported to play Meir. 

Don’t watch Nattiv’s “Golda” with the expectation that you’ll see Meir’s early life fleeing pogroms and her pre-Israel upbringing and education in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That history is figuratively on screen, as all of Meir’s personality and leadership style are derived from those childhood experiences. Nattiv was barely six months old when the main action of the film took place. Even while growing up in Israel, many of the details of the War remained top secret for decades. 

“Golda” feels real and looks authentic. The song over the end credits (again, no spoilers), is a perfect coda. The film will have viewers reflecting on the value of preemptive military strikes and feeling the weight of war’s gray areas. A fitting word that is used in the film and by Nattiv in the interview is hubris.

“There were many f—ups [during the Yom Kippur War] and Golda is not the only one who is to blame for that,” Nattiv said. “That’s the main thing that I wanted to do in the movie: transfer the knowledge that Golda was just on the top. She just ran the government, but she relied on her commanders. And she was led by disillusioned and hubris commanders. That’s not only her fault, but she did take responsibility and she resigned later on, which we don’t see anyone doing today.”

“Golda” opens in theaters on August 25.