Golda film review — heavily made-up Helen Mirren leads skin-deep biopic

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All people want to talk about with Golda, the stodgy biography of former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, is the cosmetics. The issue is the heavy make-up worn by star Helen Mirren, which sparked heated discussion of whether gentile actors should play Jewish characters. Word-counts and life are short. That hot potato can go cold without me. But the hoo-ha was surely not the plan of Tel Aviv-born filmmaker Guy Nattiv. Consider it a lesson in living by the sword. His Golda is so skin-deep, it only feels right it should be judged on aesthetics.

The film is a snapshot of a leader at what should be breaking point. By odd coincidence, the timeframe is exactly that of the urgent new documentary 20 Days in Mariupol: the 20 days of the 1973 Yom Kippur war, fought between Israel and Arab states led by Egypt and Syria. Unlike the Ukraine war, a grudging ceasefire followed, though with huge casualties on both sides. Meir would later be subject to an Israeli inquiry over her role in allowing the country to be attacked, which Golda uses as a framing device.

The movie’s Meir faces these trials as she does all else, with a cigarette in hand. Sometimes two. The only person more hooked than Meir is Nattiv, for whom smoke is as vital as Mirren. A tobacco shroud hangs over every scene, to symbolic effect. It obscures the fact that other parts of the visual design are smart, if relentlessly stylised. Lack of time and options is reflected in tight little war rooms. But the script is repetitive too, dense with statistics and clichés.

Like Meir, a lot is being asked of Mirren. Never less than compelling, her work here feels true from scene to scene. (At least one is great: Henry Kissinger, outwitted over borscht.) But even this star needs more to crack the central mystery. Many other young Jewish girls saw friends and families terrorised by Cossacks in the 1900s. Only one became Golda Meir. Why? The movie leaves the question lost in that digital fog.

★★★☆☆

In UK cinemas from October 6