Golda

I’m not particularly familiar with Israeli history. I know the very basics, about how the country was cobbled together by the Allied powers after World War II with little regard for the region’s politics, leading to many years of conflict with the neighboring Arab nations. I know the U.S. has been staunch allies of Israel for quite a while, although that relationship has at times been quite fraught. I know a bit about modern events, including the efforts of current PM Benjamin Netanyahu to neuter the judiciary. But it’s just not a part of the world I think about very often.

So I came into this movie without a bunch of context. I’d heard of the Yom Kippur War, but knew nothing else. Well, apart from the fact that they were ultimately victorious, as evidenced by their continued existence. Fortunately, the filmmakers anticipated that much of the audience would be in my position, and thus began with a brief montage to catch us up on the 25 years or so of Israel’s history which preceded the film. Granted, they have their own viewpoint which biases their presentation of history, so it’s to be taken with a grain of salt. But it’s a fine foundation.

As you’d guess from the title, Golda is most interested in the portrayal of Golda Meir, Israel’s first female Prime Minster (and fourth overall), played by Helen Mirren. Specifically, Golda is recounting the events of the Yom Kippur War months later as part of an investigation to her response during that invasion. The narrative stays with her as she navigates the incoming intelligence, holds intense conversations with her trusted advisors, and listens in real time to the outcomes of their strategic decisions. We see her battling with illness, with negative outcomes leading to the deaths of Israelis, and with Henry Kissenger (Liev Schreiber). And no surprise, we eventually see her victorious.

One of the most interesting decisions made by the filmmakers was in how the story is told. It’s uncommon (although far from unheard of) to make a biopic which only considers a small portion of the subject’s life. But it’s additionally a war/political thriller, which seems like a rarer perspective through which to tell the story of a person in power. Golda partakes in the military strategy and planning, or at least sits with them and evaluates options with the assistance of her advisors. She then joins military command to listen to the radio and watch aerial footage of the operations. For this, the filmmakers utilize archival footage and audio, including some of the only Hebrew in the film, which makes for very effective and affecting visuals. These scenes always start with a very tense buildup as everyone gets into position before the first shots are fired. Then, the battle commences, and we watch her face tell its story. They are tense scenes, ones in which we feel every up and down, as if we’re standing in the room there with them.

Granted, staying away from the battlefield does put some distance between us and the true cost of the fighting. The movie makes some attempts to correct this aspect. We hear counts of the dead and wounded all the time, and each time Golda walks through the hospital, the morgue has fewer and fewer open shelves. Golda always looks devastated when an operation doesn’t go to plan. But the emotional connection between those deaths and what’s coming over the radio doesn’t really land.

However, Mirren and the rest of the crew do an outstanding job of putting us into the shoes of someone who feels so out of place, so overwhelmed, so unprepared to deal with all of this, and absolutely terrified she’s going to make the wrong decision. She acts decisively, sure, because that’s her job as a politician. It will just result in her hunched over, head in her hands, as she tries to regain some semblance of control in a situation that’s only getting worse. Even as the tide begins to turn, the costs of that victory are not lost on her. And so, true to life or not, Golda comes across as a skilled politician who was thrust into wartime, managing to pull through by a mix of delegation and wielding of her power.

One choice that feels odd at first but eventually settles in and makes sense is the lack of focus on the War itself. Although time is kept in days since the war began, and every single event of the film is driven by it, we don’t get a great sense for the why or the how. For example, in the first days of the invasion, the Syrians take the Golan. But then, after three or four days, we learn the Israelis have pushed them back, despite us having witnessed a failed military operation. How did that happen? And so decisively that they could focus entirely on the Egyptians in the south? History has answers, but this movie is uninterested in them. Because this is not a movie about the Yom Kippur War; this is a movie about Golda Meir.

Specifically, it is a movie about how Golda managed Israel through an existential threat to its existence. Which is to say that it venerates her. Initially, as her strategic decisions lead to a string of losses, and as the Israeli troops blundered into traps, I’d thought she was going to come out of it muddy. That while Israel came out victorious, it was less due to her than others around her, and that she was wholly unsuited to make the decisions required of her during the fighting. But as the movie goes on, it’s clear all the obstacles in her way are there for her to heroically overcome. She’s even able to exert some extreme pressure on Kissenger by using a fairly brutal threat (albeit one on which we know she's unlikely to follow through) and gain some concessions from their enemies. Not to mention the archival footage at the end showing her heroic reception by the troops.

But since a title card at the end acknowledges she has a complicated legacy within Israel to this day, that feels disingenuous. We don’t really engage with what makes her complicated. There are protests as she goes into the deposition, but we know nothing about why. That the investigation seemingly centers on if she acted appropriately given the available intelligence is the only hint we get. It was only as I was preparing to write this review I learned she’s considered by many historians to be a failed PM. Perhaps more importantly, the movie completely avoids any mention of Palestine. I think I remember a single passing mention of the West Bank, but that’s it. Which is why you must be careful when looking to biopics for historical accuracy: they sometimes smooth over the real messiness. One of Golda’s most famous lines can be read as a denial of the existence of Palestinians as a people, so it’s clear her relationship to Palestine was, at best, complicated. And instead of even acknowledging that, the movie sidesteps it entirely.

I am not Jewish, nor Arab, nor do I know Israeli history. So I cannot evaluate this movie for its historical accuracy, and I cannot determine if its portrayal of her was “fair”. I can (and did) do a bit of reading afterwards to put it into a broader historical context, but I cannot absorb all the nuance and sociopolitical factors and long-running disputes that truly inform the War, or even Golda herself.

But I am qualified to talk about it as a film. On that front, it is incredibly engaging, intense, and exciting. The story is compelling, and the style in which it is told keeps your eyes glued to the screen, on the edge of your seat, even as much of the time in between is spent in conference rooms. The supporting cast serves the story well, although no one really stands out. Mirren is quite good, although nothing special to my eye. But the nature of the role means I wouldn’t be surprised if she gets a nod for Best Actress.

It’s a political thriller wrapped in a biopic, and turns out that is an excellent marriage.