Title: Zero Motivation
Country: Israel
Rating: 8.5
Comedy is pretty
hard to judge. I hardly ever see comedies in theaters because what the big US studios
consider funny these days just doesn’t get a laugh out of me. I don’t think of
myself as a grumpy person, though, just a picky one. That said, Zero Motivation
cracked me up!
A group of young
women serving their mandatory military service in the IDF, kill time in admin
positions at an obscure and strategically minor dessert outpost during
peacetime. They compete for ‘world records’ in MS minesweeper, intermittently
shred miscellaneous documents and jealously guard their most valuable
possession: twin staple guns. The film is divided into several acts following
Daffi, who is so desperate to transfer to Tel Aviv that she may even endure
officer’s training, Zohar, a natural rebel and unhappy virgin who manages to
destroy everything in her wake without ever feeling at fault, and their
commanding officer Rama, a highly-driven authoritative workaholic with plenty
of conviction and almost no charisma.
This is smart,
character-driven comedy with excellent timing, a brisk cycle of realism and
absurdity and the boredom-born wisdom to recognize that drudgery and
whimsicality are very near neighbors. It’s also a movie that genuinely cares
for its characters, even the ones who it uses as the butt of jokes, while never
giving them a free pass or excusing their bad behavior and poor judgment.
Anyone who has every worked in an office environment, especially one cutoff
from common sense by layers of calcified bureaucracy, will find moments of
recognition and laughter.
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