79-year-old Oscar nominee James Caan brings the same snarling demeanor and no-nonsense approach to playing a retired cardiologist who's spending his retirement as a pig farmer in Israel in "Holy Lands" as he has to roles throughout his entire career.
Caan's an acting treasure, but even he can't save this disjointed film from falling into plot disarray. Writer/director Amanda Sthers ("Love in Lapland") becomes so entranced by the landscape she's selected as a backdrop to tell the story that too much work is left to the audience to wade through the sloppy writing to get some handle on what motivates the players.
Harry's decision to raise pigs in Israel draws the wrath of most of the Jewish population, including the local rabbi, Moshe Cattan (Tom Hollander). Cattan's concentrated efforts to stop Harry's business ends up being less a war of wills and more a way for the two men to become friends. There are nice buddy moments, but this doesn't help either man deal with some dramatic family problems.
Sthers tries to balance the stories of two families with the main focus being how Harry deals (or doesn't deal) with his playwright son, David (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), and his employment-challenged daughter, Annabelle (Efrat Dor). There's also a complicated situation between Harry and his ex-wife, Monica (Rosanne Arquette), due to some tragic news.
Just as there's no clear explanation of why Harry would put himself in a world designed to make all those around him hate him, there's only fractured bits of information to set up the awkward world that exists between father and offspring. A discussion of David's sexuality offers the only real clues, but this casts Harry more as ignorant rather than complicated.
Harry's relationship with his daughter is not as tense, but even she shows disconnect with the world. Annabelle travels to Israel to see her father but ends up getting involved with distractions that lead to a major story leap that comes out of the blue.
The heart of the problem comes from Sthers being too close to the material, as the screenplay was adapted from her own 2010 French novel of the same name. There's always a sense of large gaps in book adaptations that needed to be filled for the film to have a comfortable flow. The gaps in "Holy Lands" are wider than the Mediterranean Sea.
One slightly saving grace is Arquette, whose portrayal of Monica is both strong and sensitive. She's given the most structured character and takes advantage of every opportunity to grab the audience. It would have been far more interesting if she had been the central focus and left Harry to be an unfulfilled supporting player.
"Holy Lands" also would have been stronger if Hollander's character and his family were at the core. He's a spunky rabbi who doesn't give an inch, and that leads to a connection between the two men, despite having completely different philosophies. The rabbi is also dealing with his own family issues, which are far more grounded.
The film has solid performances _ especially Caan and Arquette _ but the players are presented in such a deep fog that none of the big emotional moments come from a sense of truth. Sthers bounces between the stories of the families and David's latest stage production that's based on his melodramatic family life. The stage production comes across as far more emotionally telling than Sthers' stories away from the stage.
