Reaching heights of chutzpah that would make Larry David envious, the Israeli comedy "One Week and a Day" is hard to resist despite the fact that the main character is exasperation incarnate.
Eyal (Shai Avivi) was clearly a pain before his adult son passed away. Still as rude and sharp-tongued as before, he expects the world to wait for his permission before it gets back to normal. His pragmatic wife Vicky (Evgenia Dodina) wants to return to her teaching job, helping other people's children. Eyal doesn't seem eager to do anything but self-medicate with some therapeutic marijuana he filched out of his son's hospital room.
The film's narrative arc is sort of a crazy straw as the neighbors' son Zooler (Tomer Kapon), a mellow stoner who was his son's semi-friend, helps Eyal with the challenge of rolling usable joints. Asaph Polonsky's debut feature reveals surprise after surprise, some poetic, some tragic and some _ like Kapon's insane single-take air guitar extravaganza _ sidesplittingly funny. It's a shaggy dog story of the best breed.
