In the opening sequence of “Come Closer,” the feature debut of Israeli filmmaker Tom Nesher, teenage Nati (Ido Tako) is abducted off the street in front of his house. A bag is put over his head, and he is hustled, screaming and protesting, into the back of a van, but the people who abduct him are just kids, and in fact, many of them are laughing as they kidnap him. He’s taken to the beach, where he finally realizes this is an elaborate prank engineered by his older sister, Eden (Lia Elalouf), a wild, domineering, charismatic girl, to “celebrate” his birthday. The party that follows is a rager, and everyone passes out on the beach. Still drunk, Nati wanders off towards the road, where he is hit and killed by a passing vehicle.
With the fake-out kidnapping, riotous flash-bulb glimpses of kids partying, and the swift tragedy that ends a life, “Come Closer”‘s opening is chaotic. Still, a lot of information is given, particularly about Eden, because this will be her story. She and Nati are obviously very close, but the prank is more than a little disturbing, and very revealing about how she operates. Over and over again, she pushes people for a reaction, she plays “pranks”, and it’s not all fun and games. She needs more than the world can ever give her. The death of her younger sibling sends Eden spinning into more chaos, especially when she discovers that all this time, Nati had been keeping a secret from her. He has a girlfriend.
In 2018, Nesher’s 17-year-old younger brother Ari was hit by a car and killed. The incident was widely publicized due to the fame of Tom and Nesher’s father, filmmaker Ari Nesher. Tom Nesher directed a couple of short films, but writing the screenplay for “Come Closer” was a way to process her grief.
The film spans a year, showing Eden’s downward spiral. Grief manifests itself in unexpected ways. Grief is not sadness. Grief often “presents” as total avoidance. Eden tracks down Nati’s secret girlfriend, a shy 16-year-old girl named Maya (Darya Rosenn). Eden is clearly jealous of what Maya had with Nati: she thought she was her brother’s #1. Eden is also shocked and hurt at Nati keeping anything from her. We saw these tendencies in the opening sequence.
Eden’s life is both simple and complicated. She’s out of high school. She’s not in college and doesn’t have a job, aside from occasional bartending. All she does is go to clubs. Her look is distinctive: intricate jewelry on her neck and wrists, bright eyeshadow smudged in the corner of her eyes, plum-colored hair. She has a long-standing beef with her mother and is still resentful of her parents’ divorce. Eden sleeps with a married man (Yaakov Zada-Daniel) and lives in a little room with posters on the walls, like she’s still in high school. Maya really is still in high school, but feels years older than Eden. Eden drags her out to clubs and gets her drunk.
The story is so firmly in Eden’s point of view, and Eden is so self-absorbed that the film is often a tough watch. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and Nesher’s script is refreshingly honest in presenting Eden without softening her. We’ve all known people like Eden, people who can’t just “be” in a room, who will manufacture friction to “get something going,” who prefer pranks, practical jokes, and jump scares to real interactions. Eden can’t just lie on a beach with Maya and enjoy the atmosphere. She has to pelt Maya with jellyfish, ignoring Maya’s terrified screams. Their relationship grows clingy, romantic, and obsessive, and it’s obviously not healthy, but grief is not known for encouraging people to act rationally.
Maya goes on a high school trip to Auschwitz, sending Eden videos where she mocks the concentration camp guide and gets in trouble for giggling while on the tour. In return, Eden sends Maya videos of the government protests she’s been attending. It’s hard to picture Eden having any interest in national or world events, especially since the “real world” doesn’t exist at all in the rest of “Come Closer”. These moments jar; they feel tacked on and out of place.
“Come Closer” is a unique take on grief, containing insight into projection and transference, as well as the way obsession is almost a relief from having to face the unfaceable. Nesher’s script belabors the point at times, but as a director, she captures the rhythms of Tel Aviv’s social swirl, the alcohol-spiked bell jar of clubs and dancing and music, all the things that make up the manic nightlife of a lost twentysomething who has no idea the party is already over.
