Cleveland International Film Festival } March 22 – April 1, 2023 } Playhouse Square
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TO TAKE A WIFE
(Ve Lakechta Lecha Isha)

Year: 2004
Country: ISRAEL
Language: Hebrew, French, Moroccan Arabic
Run Time: 97 minutes

Actress Ronit Elkabetz is explosive in her lead role as unhappy wife and mother Viviane, caught in claustrophobic, loveless marriage. An intense chamber piece on marriage and family, this film has been compared to writer Edward Albee?s work. Viviane and her rigid, emotionally distant husband Eliyahou are living with his mother in Haifa, having emigrated from Morroco. It?s 1979, and the film opens with an eight-minute scene in which Viviane?s brothers intimidate her into staying in her marriage. The husband and wife begin a terrible, passive-aggressive game that eventually takes its toll on their four children. Eliyahou seeks control; Viviane seeks a little slice of happiness. When Viviane finally blows, it?s devastating. The dialogue, shifting back and forth between languages, is searingly raw throughout.

Screenplay
Ronit & Shlomi Elkabetz

Directors
Shlomi Elkabetz, Ronit Elkabetz

Producer
Marek Rozenbaum, Itai Tamir, Jean-Philippe Reza

Cinematography
Yaron Scharf

Editing
Joelle Alexis

Principal Cast
Ronit Elkabetz, Simon Abkarian, Gilbert Melki, Sulika Kadosh, Dalia Malka Beger

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