Zero Motivation (2014) User Reviews

Yeah, I liked it a lot

[bbickley13-921-58664 · 8/10 · 13 January 2015]

So when I saw the movie's summary about a group of women being pencil pushers in the Israeli army, I was expecting something far different.

My perception (which I got from movies) of the Israeli army is that every one who comes out of it seems to be real bad ass. This movie contradicts that, completely.

The movie tells three different stories about different types of women in the army. A story of a woman who wants to be in command, a woman looking for a nice job in a nice place, and a woman who can't wait for her service to end.

What I enjoyed most was how the filmmakers were able to construct characters who you can connect with. I can't put my finger on how it was done but I came out of this caring for the out come of all of them. Maybe it was a combination of the writing and the acting, or how the movie was edited to focus on the main characters and tell their stories. Whatever it was, it truly worked.

Not knowing much about military service in Israel, I will assume the picture is displaying the emotion of what it's like to do it. From trying to play the male dominated game to just trying to get by.

Overall, I was very impressed by it.

Tightly structured script packed with witty humor

[Kicino · 8/10 · 16 March 2015]

I was ready for some comedy and the Israeli movie "Zero Motivation" way exceed my expectation. In addition to a great script, with a well- organized and tightly structured plot, it is filled with black comedy, feminism, friendship, and work ethics wrapped with a little nudity and horror, all done with a limited budget. The acting are very good too.

The movie was divided into three parts which are linked together by two central characters, Daffi (Nelly Tagar) and Zohar (Dana Ivgy), both young female soldiers working in the administration department of a military base in the middle of the dessert. They are among a group of equally demotivated female colleagues supervised by ambitious but frustrated Captain Rama (Shani Klein), the only female officer in the management team.

The film starts with good friends Daffi and Zohar reluctantly return to base after a short break. Daffi, a clerical worker in charge of paper and the shredder, is tired of being stuck in the dessert and wants to be transferred to Tel Aviv. She seeks help from Zohar who is responsible for mail and trusts her in mailing letters for her transfer. Comedy erupts when a new comer Tehila (Yonit Tobi) enters the camp and Daffi treats her as her replacement until something tragic happens.

In the second part, Zohar is obsessed about losing her virginity but she exercises her independent thinking and receives help from a fellow colleague who asserts the female ego.

It is the third part that ties all the loose ends from part one and two and we see more comedy, irony and creative action. Then everything ends in a reasonable and interesting wrap up.

I would not divulge too much plot as it will spoil the fun. But I can guarantee that it is packed with jokes and laughter while making you think about the absurdity and blessing in life, while pondering on gender roles.

Perhaps the only short coming is the military setting which is hard for most international audience to identify with. But the issues of office management, friendship and courtship are universal across industry and culture. Most importantly, the voice of female power is strong. Highly recommended.

Funny, Dark and Delightful

[bkrauser-81-311064 · 8/10 · 5 June 2016]

Zero Motivation follows in the tradition of Catch-22 (1970) and M*A*S*H (1970) by exploring the understated banalities, vulgarities and absurdities of military life. Much like those films, we follow a congress of loosely connected characters, none of which approach their jobs with any kind of pride or relish. Instead they see their predicament as some sort of purgatory by which a better life lies just beyond their reach. Slight difference in this case, is the majority of the films denizens are Israeli women and not American men.

The story is divided into three vignettes largely following the quiet and diminutive Zohar (Ivgy) and the rebellious Daffi (Tagar). The first story involves the duo returning from furlough. On their way back to base they meet Tehila (Tobi) who Zohar mistakes for a replacement thus making her dream of transferring to reality. Tehila however is not what she seems. The second story involves Daffi's fruitless quest to loose her virginity which has disastrous consequences on her unit, including and especially Rama (Klein) her superior officer. The last story sees the unintended results of Zohar's constant schemes to leave her isolated base for a cushy position in Tel Aviv.

The rest of the ensemble includes Russian transplant Irena (Klingon) and twitty songbirds Livnat (Twito) and Liat (Gal), who fill out the rest of the unit like glitches in a computer program.Though if one were to point to a standout performance it would be Shani Klein as Rama. Between the privates and the male high commanders, Rama approaches everything with exaggerated incredulity and frustrated exhaustion. Anyone who has had to supervise a gaggle of uncaring, unmotivated underlings while being pressed by micromanaging overseers will automatically sympathize with her plight. Especially when faced with the one-woman agent of chaos that is Nelly Tagar's Daffi.

Each vignette ends in much the same way; ironically and with a darkly humorous twist where no one is a modicum happier. Even those who have never experienced Army life (or been a woman) will find a lot to love about Zero Motivation. The girls are fighting the same kind of dull lethargy many of us contend with on a daily basis. When the plot isn't grinding hopes and dreams into a fine powder, the girls occupy their time with various distractions, the most coveted of which is Daffi's Minesweeper game. It's sad, bordering on pathetic yet when something as inconsequential as a computer game is the only trinket tethering your sanity, you'd want to hold on to it too.

Darker than Stripes (1981), funnier than Catch-22 and way more concise than M*A*S*H, Zero Motivation is a fierce, fun little satire made all the more relevant coming from a country that has only known war since its inception. While it does pull its punches in the last act, leaving us with an ending that is uncharacteristically hopeful, everything leading up to it is pure gold. Check out this Israeli import if for no other reason than you'll never look at a staple gun the same way again.

For young soldiers!

[petarmatic · 7/10 · 4 March 2015]

It is interesting that every army looks alike. When I served in the Yugoslav Army back in 1987/88 I felt exactly the same as some of these girls. Stupidity of the Army is dumbfounding. This film portrays that well. I guess armies have to exist to protect the societies from the various enemies, and with Ukraine-Russia conflict it is obvious that well organized armies are good deterrent from the attack by the foreign enemy.

Females can be good soldiers even better then males sometimes. This film portrays this well. It also shows us insides of the Israeli Defense Force. Interesting creation is that Israel. A state to protect Jews from the outside enemies. I hate to admit it but there is a reason for Israel to exist, because so many crazies want to hurt Jews. Crazy!!! All the Jews I know are good people. They could be more open to the outside friendlies of other religions, but since what happened to them during WWII it is understandable why they are that way. Once bitten by a snake you are afraid of a snail! Plus they are surrounded by the Arabs. What a dumber!

I recommend that you watch this sweet film.

truly, the greatest israeli film of all time

[The Fresh Prince · 10/10 · 4 September 2014]

i will admit, i'm an Israeli guy and i think that the film industry in my country still has a lot to improve when it comes to quality, to meet with other countries standards. in the last 5-6 years, there has been a huge improvement in film editing. Israeli films used to be about drama and comedy, there almost hasn't been any thrillers or sci-fic but now we get the chance to enjoy new styles like "vals with bashir" which is an academy award winning animated Israeli film, or "bufor" - military thriller ,"big bad wolves" - an amazing high quality horror-drama, all are big budget films.

the lately "zero motivation" ('efes be'yahasey enosh' - zero in social skills) is the most entertaining Israeli film i've seen so far. it's about 3-4 IDF female soldiers who work in office of their military base. doing paper work and complains about anything and everything. the film is hilarious from beginning to end. not even one minute that is boring. the acting is superb and the dialog is just natural. the film is a huge box office hit in Israel, on the top of the charts for more than 2 months already, and receiving a 90% positive reviews from critics and regular watchers. to make a long story short, if you are looking for 2 hours of sweet drive, this is the one for you. 10 out of 10.

A Unique Film, Unlike Anything Else

[jordyntsmith · 6/10 · 22 June 2021]

A group of army administrators live their dreary days on a quiet military base.

It's hard to define this movie, it's like MASH but with administration. Or like The Office in the army. It's enjoyable, but sometimes it jumps too quickly between fun and pure darkness of time. It's a unique movie that is worth checking out if you want to avoid more mainstream titles. Just watch out, the nudity comes form nowhere, and so do some other darker surprises.

Hilarious scenes, but also deals with real issues.

[nahar34 · 10/10 · 5 June 2015]

This is one of the best Israeli films I've seen.

I loved the characters and the real portrayal of army life for women.

There was one difficult scene about suicide. It was shown in a somewhat humorous manner, but is obviously a serious problem in the IDF as in other armies.

I'll just explain this for people who haven't lived in Israel: "The Kirya" is a base located in TLV, and considered an easy service compared with being placed in a remote location. One of the girls wishes she could serve on this base.

Just a note to the actors: please create a profile with your pictures, on this site.

Zero For Conduct

[boblipton · 6/10 · 19 September 2020]

Dana Ivgy is a clerk at a military base in the desert. She's a mess. She spends all of her time playing computer games and is the only human to come out of a kibbutz a virgin. As she destroys the career of his commanding officer, Shani Klein, her best friend, Nelly Tagar sends letters asking for reassignment because she is allergic to sand, and goes through Officer Training in an effort to be reassigned to Tel Aviv. Meanwhile Miss Ivgy shreds all the papers in the office and destroys the computer files.

Is this a satire of the military or a black comedy of a foul up? I think it's both. Whether it's because women aren't suited to the military life, the army isn't made for women, or the utter pointlessness of paperwork, writer-director Talya Lavie doesn't seem to feel her time in the Israeli Defense Force to have been the highlight of her life.

Amazing triptych

[ReganRebecca · 8/10 · 20 March 2017]

The Israel Defense Forces have a certain reputation both inside of Israel and outside of it. With certain exemptions, nearly every Israeli must do a mandatory two year minimum of training and the IDF is considered one of the best armies in the world. In Zero Motivation writer-director Talya Lavie quickly dispels with any romantic or political notions of what serving in the army is like and focuses her attentions on a group of teens serving out their time in a podunk base in the middle of the desert where her heroines are assigned the most menial and redundant administrative tasks.

The movie focuses on two best friends; Zohar (played by Israeli star Dava Ivgy) who has an attitude problem and a chip on her shoulder, and Daffi (Nelly Tagar) a childish brat who dreams of finishing out her duty in Tel Aviv where she can go shopping and play on the beach in her downtime. Instead the two friends make life miserable for everyone around them, focusing their attentions on hitting record highs in minesweeper instead of completing the simple office busy work they're supposed to be doing.

The film is organized in a triptych so that each half hour is its own individual section and tells one specific story but the stories build and feed in to each other. Also despite some dark story lines which include a suicide and an attempted rape the movie is absolutely hilarious. It always keeps the heroines at the forefront of the action and their callous attitudes and general unpleasantness towards their colleagues, and eventually each other, keeps things interesting and life.

A great watch.

Clever, and a good balance of fun and drama

[Nozz · 8/10 · 18 July 2014]

Some elements of the movie are quite unbelievable, but the movie is clever enough to approach them gradually and only after achieving buy-in from the audience. What with the delicate balance of comedy and drama, when the girls start duelling with staple guns you truly aren't sure whether somebody's going to get terribly hurt or not. I've never been a fan of Dana Ivgy, sullen and sulky as she always looks, but the role here fits her; and it's a nice script, divided into ostensibly separate chapters but surprising the audience with links between them and not ending before even the shrewish valkyrie of a desk officer has been vouchsafed a moment of sympathy from the audience. If Nat Hiken were alive, I think he and his creation Sergeant Bilko would approve.

A Hollow, Empty Office Farce

[c2016098 · 2/10 · 21 December 2014]

I don't understand why this movie was made. It is so slight as to be non-existent. I will grant the possibility that there was something lost in translation: I'm not Israeli so maybe there are cultural aspects that don't translate. Also, I read the dialog in subscripts. Some have called it a dark comedy. Frequently this means "not funny" or "high concept, conceptually funny, but not actually funny." I did laugh twice, but that doesn't make it a comedy. In the first story of three related stories, a young woman commits suicide in a gruesome way. Ha ha. So maybe it's a drama then. But the drama is superficial and unbelievable, based on e.g. a nasty character, the office boss and apparently an officer, who is so over-the-top mean that the character is literally not believable. Other episodes are poorly written as when two characters go missing from an intense project for hours without being missed. There is attempted drama between some of the young women characters which is really no more than trivial friction among friends. There is a surreal scene where apparently a ghost enters someone's bed and that person might or might not be possessed for a few hours. There are farcical aspects such as when an impossibly slow paper shredder is suddenly able to fill an entire office with shreddings. There is a date gone sort of wrong interrupted by a gun-toting possibly- possessed woman. There is a shoot-out with staple guns that could have been funny but the context is that these characters are truly trying to harm the other. Despite these scenarios, all of this adds up to approximately nothing—a hollow experience, a wasted movie night.

Witty and original

[jonathan-lowenstein · 8/10 · 18 July 2014]

This is a lovely coming-of-age movie about very young women coping with their impossibly dull military service in the Israeli army. The film is very funny with a lot of attention to detail (the officers routinely meet in front of a map marked "Palestine"). The sound track is simple but beautifully put into the context of the movie. The camera work is very low key, and very reminiscent of early Israeli movies in its style. Its not a political movie but it does give a genuine insight into how many young Israeli women experience their military service. As a footnote I will say that I saw it in Tel Aviv, the theatre was packed and as the movie started there was a siren and the whole audience had to shuffle into the exit tunnels. After a few minutes (and having heard the explosion of a missile being intercepted nearby), we went back to our seats and the movie restarted.

clever plot, good acting = enjoyable IDF film

[kolnoaMograbi · 9/10 · 10 July 2014]

How anyone could not enjoy *Efes Yachasei Enosh* is beyond me. The incomparable Dana Ivgy (Zohar) with her zinger lines and equally zing-y delivery, and the actress who portrays Irena (why is she not credited?) carry this zany, slightly dark IDF comedy.

I subtracted one star from 10 because I found it unrealistic that a shot could be fired on an IDF base and no one comes running.

Other than that, the plot is just complex enough with just enough loops to keep it moving, yet not confusing; and the characters were thoroughly differentiated, again simplifying things for the viewer.

The story treats contemporary issues such as date rape, sadistic commanders, and the plight of women soldiers assigned to unchallenging administrative jobs. I recommend Zero Motivation highly.

*By the way, I'd translate *yachasei enosh* יחסי אנוש as "people skills", but "motivation" works, as this crowd lacks both!

Biting Jewish humour in a military farce with a feminist overtone

[jormatuominen · 8/10 · 29 October 2015]

In Talya Lavie's film there is a scene where a male soldier tells female conscripts about his recruit training. It was really bad, like the holocaust, he narrates. Why? Because the officers were like the Nazis, he goes on. I'm not a Jew, so if I told you the rest of this holocaust joke, it would be absolutely tasteless. I can't do that. But funny it is, when told by a Jew in Israeli Defense Forces uniform to other soldiers. The humour in this film relies on unlikely and sudden contradictions such as this, which is pretty much the definition of a farce. Some reviewers here have obviously not recognized this genre and have not expected the unexpected which this film delivers in plentiful doses. If you ask a cinema lover about Jewish humour, she or he probably first thinks of Woody Allen telling a joke about God, and why not - but he's told so many of them we're surely ready for some new perspectives. Joseph Cedar's Footnote was a refreshing dark comedy from Israel and Lavie's Zero Motivation is a fine showcase for classical Jewish humour in a fresh setting, the all-female personnel files office of a desert military base. One reviewer thought that the soldier girls are bitching and lack solidarity - to me it seems they are mostly just being argumentative pretty much as a Jew is expected and brought up to be. Another non-Israeli reviewer was shocked by the suicide of a young woman sneaking into the base dressed as a soldier. This is sensitive, of course, but one has to remember the tragicomic context. The biggest fear in the Israeli base is surely an attack by a suicide bomber. Then an outsider penetrates the base using a fake ID - and kills herself but for purely romantic reasons. The Palestinians are present in the film only in hints such as this. The film is based on Talya Lavie's own experiences in the IDF. She must have been bored. But the audience of the film is not. I'm not in the target audience: I'm a 60-year old Nordic male conscience objector and as said not Jewish. Yet I enjoyed the whole thing and think I got most of the jokes right. Could be re-written into an effective theatrical farce.

forgettable 1st feature film

[tonywohlfarth · 2/10 · 23 April 2014]

I screened Zero Motivation at Tribeca this week. The early signs were positive: - its nominated for best narrative feature; - the director's prior film - a short - won # awards; - Talya Lavie worked on the script at the Sundance Film Institute. Sadly, all those 1st impressions came crashing to the ground: - the acting performances are nothing special; - the script is at time awkward and full of gender stereotypes and clichés; - the audience reaction was all over the map. The story line is pretty straightforward. Zohar serves her two years working in a boring back office function at an IDF base. She befriends Daffi and they twosome become close. Daffi aspires to live in Tel Aviv, & somehow manages to complete officer training to fulfill her wish. Alas, Daffi's 1st assignment takes her back to her former unit, where the two inevitably tangle. In a Q&A following the screening, a member of the cast suggested the plot was a "realistic portrayal of life in the IDF" and the plot of this dark comedy represented a microcosm of Israeli society. If this sad state of affairs is realistic, God help Israel!

This film is demeaning to women and . . . it's not funny

[Red-125 · 4/10 · 27 July 2015]

Zero Motivation (2014) is an Israeli film, written and directed by Talya Lavie. The movie takes place at a remote army post of the Israeli Defense Force. All of the main actors portray female conscripts, none of whom wants to be in the army, especially in the middle of the desert.

Dana Ivgy plays Zohar and Nelly Tagar plays Daffi, best friends until they're not. All of the women are unmotivated and act like prisoners rather than soldiers. (Well, in a sense they are prisoners.) However, instead of banding together to fight against the repressive officers, they play computer games and fight with each other.

Not only was this film demeaning to women, but it wasn't funny. (Well, if you consider a woman committing suicide early in the film funny, then I guess it's funny.)

This film won multiple awards at the Israeli Film Academy Awards, and it carries a very high IMDb rating of 7.7. OK--everyone else liked it. I thought it was insulting and demeaning to women, and I really disliked it.

We saw this movie in the Dryden Theatre, as part of the fantastic Rochester International Film Festival. It will work on the small screen as well as it worked on the large screen.

Zero Motivation review

[lileonhirth · 4/10 · 18 December 2017]

Zero Motivation is an Israeli film about a group of women who are working in the Israel Defense Forces. Zohar and Daffi are best friends who traveled together daily to work at the Human Resources Office at a remote dessert base in Israel. One day when they arrive at the base Daffi finds her replacement named Tehila. Daffy's big dream is to work in Tel-Aviv, so she tried to get a replacement and reassignment, so she could work in Tel-Aviv. Rama is the supervisor and head of all the girls working in the defense forces. Daffi and the rest of the base soon found out that Tehila was not her replacement. Tehila snuck onto the base to see a boy that she fell in love with. This boy serving in the forces rejects Tehila, and she then commits suicide. Daffi decided to apply for a position to be an officer because she saw this as the only way to achieve her goal to work in Tel-Aviv. She got transferred to another base, and left her friend Zohar in bad terms. Daffi then graduates from officer training, and instead of being placed in Tel-Aviv, ironically she receives Rama's old position which was extremely ironic. Daffi struggles to discipline the girls that she used to be friends with while working in the office. Zohar and Daffy get involved in a violent fight. These girls got arrested because they were harassing each other. In the end Zohar takes the blame, so that Daffi can experience her dream by working in Tel-Aviv. I would recommend this film to someone who is not looking for a lot of action, and wishes to learn about women's role in the Israeli troops. I have watched many films throughout this school year, and Zero Motivation has not been very intriguing. This film was very boring and did not have any climax which does not allow the viewers to question what will happen next. Although I did not enjoy watching this film, I thought it was very interesting to see footage of all the soldiers serving for the Israel Defense Forces.