In a transcendent new TV series, a memorable group of misfits struggles on the margins of Tel Aviv
‘Just for Today,’ made by a co-creator of ‘In Treatment,’ is set at an Israeli Halfway house
‘Just for Today’ is a new Israeli TV series set at a Tel Aviv halfway house. Courtesy of ChaiFlicks
I admit my threshold is low for films that feature patients, addicts or prisoners sitting in a circle confessing their failings and vulnerability, then allegedly feeling so much better for having “shared.” My tolerance is perhaps even lower for earnest dramas that convey activist messages that explicitly or, more usually implicitly, and then advocate for social, political, cultural solutions.
Nir Bergman’s nine-part series, Just For Today, has a bit of the former (mercifully not too much touchy-feely psychobabble) and none of the latter despite its creator’s avowed aims. The old adage — trust the tale, not the teller — applies here.
Its potential pitfalls notwithstanding, Just for Today is a compelling, suspenseful story about a group of outliers who live on the corner of bad choices and just plain old lousy luck. It is not an easy watch, but it’s one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time.
Best known as a co-creator of the Israeli hit In Treatment, which inspired the American iteration, Bergman turns his lens on small-time ex-convicts who represent a cross section of Israeli society — including a Muslim Arab, a Christian Arab, and an Orthodox Jew, among a host of Jews from various backgrounds. They are living in a Tel Aviv-based halfway house, known as a hostel, and dubbed, “Only for Today,” hence the film’s title. Due to budgetary restraints the home is about to be permanently shuttered.
The residents and their two female social workers are facing existential crises. For the ex-cons, none of whom are ready to reintegrate into the society, the outside world is an alien and unwelcoming place. The odds are they’ll fall back on their old ways and return to prison where, if nothing else, life has the ring of familiarity.
For the social workers whose identities are profoundly tied up with their jobs, often at the expense of their own families, their issues are subtler and more complex. In two instances, the professional line between themselves and their wards has been badly breached.
Co-written by Ram Nehari, the well-researched series follow these characters’ individual and increasingly overlapping stories, though the narrative is bookended by the experiences of its protagonist Anat (Tal Lifshitz), a committed and idealistic social worker who has been at her gig for more than a decade. Twelve years earlier she had a passionate one-night stand with the charismatic and very attractive Niko (Henry David), a petty drug dealer. Presented as a flashback, their encounter is fiercely erotic. Still, when Anat catches him dealing drugs, she calls the cops and he is arrested. When he resurfaces for treatment at Anat’s halfway house, she has moved on and is a married mother of two young children.
In a plotline that takes family cruelty to a new level, Shlomi (Imri Baton), a victim of child abuse, is forced to return to his calculating step-brother and an aloof, withholding mother and politically connected stepfather, who ultimately banishes Shlomi to a hotel, fearful that his stepson will besmirch his political future. Shlomi’s life spirals downwards from there.
The most politically fraught story is that of Christian Arab Jamil (Morad Hassan) who was falsely accused of molesting a female pupil in the Jewish school where he previously taught. He has no doubt that ethnic-religious bigotry played a role in the accusation, conviction and incarceration that followed. The tragedy is made all the more complex by the fact that Jamil, married and a father, is a closeted gay man.
Just for Today is particularly effective in its depiction of contradictory and at times unexpected relationships. In one of the most poignant scenes we witness Jamil acknowledging to his wife that he is gay. Their mutual love is palpable and the bond between them becomes even stronger.
The series is also spot-on in its portrayal of character, whether it’s Jamil in a self-destructive and vengeful fury charging ahead to confront his accuser; or Shlomi displaying profound morality in refusing to help his stepfather’s blackmailing political adversaries, though he has every understandable motivation to do so; or, most striking, Anat’s primal instinct to preserve herself at every turn.
The performances are uniformly credible, subtle and layered. I was especially impressed with Inbar Marco’s Maya, the other social worker on board. Emotionally and physically fragile, she is responsible for Jamil and Shlomi’s transition back to their families. She has unwittingly fallen in love with the Shlomi and through no fault of her own he has fallen through the cracks. Marco brings vividly to life Maya’s all-consuming conviction that she has failed and betrayed him.
The rhythms and pacing are skillfully varied throughout and the momentum builds as the film moves towards its conclusion, which is made all the more powerful by the bleak settings and darkened streets and especially the hostel that evokes an abandoned and disintegrating slum building.
The conclusion is hauntingly open-ended for all the characters, but most pointedly for Nico and Anat. Nico suspects that Anat’s older son may in fact be his. Without exposition he meets with the boy and takes a snip of his hair. Does he plan to test it for DNA or is it just a souvenir?
The lack of resolution resonates, punctuating a multi-layered series that transcends the reductive thinking that lurks beneath its surface.
Just For Today is currently playing on Chaiflicks.
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