JEWDAR
ON SCREEN Laughing Through the Pain
AT THE END OF THE TRAILER for Israeli auteur Nadav Lapid’s new post–October 7 satire, a father tells his son, “There are only two words in the world: Yes. No. Which one do you choose?” With this seeming maximalist epic, Lapid himself chooses “yes”—to everything. The film is a genre-bending whirlwind of dance music, bombs over Gaza, and a fighting couple who literally smash their heads through a door while aggressively making out, all against the backdrop of a jazz musician composing a new Israeli national anthem after the Hamas massacre. Lapid’s previous movies include Ahed’s Knee (about Israeli state censorship); Synonyms (in which an Israeli expat absconds to France); and Policeman (depicting the internal struggles of a counter-terrorist officer). Benjamin Netanyahu’s government lobbied to remove YES! from the 2025 Jerusalem Film Festival; Lapid, a vocal critic of militaristic regimes and toxic masculinity, couldn’t have been surprised. Michael Fraiman
YES! Directed by Nadav Lapid In theatres March 27
ON SCREEN Coming of Age, On and Off Screen
THE NEPO BABY of filmmaker Judd Apatow and ac- tress Leslie Mann makes her directorial debut with Poetic License, which premiered last fall at the Toronto Interna- tional Film Festival and goes into wider release this spring. Ari (Cooper Hoffman) and Sam (Andrew Barth Feldman) are best friends and college seniors. Their relationship is tested when they both fall for Liz (Leslie Mann), a married mother auditing their poetry class. The ensemble cast also features Cliff “Method Man” Smith, Nico Park- er, and Canadian Maisy Stella. This coming-of-age story
suits its coming-of-age crew, as both Apatow and screenwriter Raffi Do- natich navigate their first steps into feature filmmaking, just as their char- acters navigate the messy, exhilarating terrain of adulthood. Sophia Hershfield
POETIC LICENSE Directed by Maude Apatow In theatres May 15
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