Since there is no such thing as civil divorce in Israel, the titular woman can only petition a panel of rabbis. This 2-hour film spends its entirety in a claustrophobic room during a 5-year series of hearings. It does offer some fascinating and frustrating insights into the culture and the directors have infused it with a stark artistic approach. However, your patience is also on trial: not only because the proceedings are so exasperating, but because the endless inflexible dialogue is, well, endless. If you have the patience to endure the droning tedium and a taste for austere foreign films, it might be worth a viewing. In Hebrew and French with subtitles. (Criterion Cinema only)
(3 / 5)