Trailer for the series "Hooli Ahava" starring Ayelet Zorer and Amos Tamam/Keshet 12
We like to tell about ourselves that we are professionals, and strong, and young and healthy and in general the whole world is spread out before us.
But once in a while there comes an event that reminds us how fragile and random our existence is.
A disaster, a war, an accident or just that something that happens to other people in the news suddenly happens to you, and life immediately turns upside down and changes its entire shape.
And what happens to the doctor, a breast cancer specialist whose name precedes her and everything is as clear as day to her, who discovers one bright day that a cancerous lump is crawling in her breast?
And what happens to a promising politician, a champion of spin, that everyone wants to be near him and that he will talk about things, when the exact same thing happens to him and he realizes that there are events that cannot be simply spun and that his latest problem is that the type of cancer is "not manly enough"?
"Lovesick", the comedy drama - yes, comedy - that premiered last night on Beshet 12 starring Ayelet Zorer and Amos Tamm, emerges from this diagnosis to a gentle description of dealing with the fear of death.
Breast cancer is alarmingly common, and threatens men as well, and anyway, there isn't one of us that this damn disease or some other type of it hasn't claimed the life of someone they know.
But we can decide that cancer is just a metaphor for that terrible news that knocks on our door unexpectedly, that time when life hits you it hurts and you have no way to return it, as Yankela Rotblit once wrote.
Unfortunately, the last period is not short of examples.
Ayelet Zorer, Amos Tamm, "Lovesick" / Keshet 12
At the center of the plot is Amalia (Zorer), a 51-year-old divorcee and mother of two teenagers, a brilliant breast cancer specialist, who discovers almost by chance that a lump has grown in her breast.
Assertive Amalia, who believes in a radical separation of emotion from work and beautifying reality for patients who fall apart in the face of the diagnosis, is suddenly required to face the decisions she requires her patients to make without thinking twice - and she is forced to recognize that they are not simple at all.
Almost at the same time, Micah Haddad (Tamm), the former Minister of Tourism, a rising star in Israeli politics who is in the midst of an election campaign, arrives at her office, and has postponed the treatments due to the multitude of events.
Each of them is required to deal with the meanings, with the discovery to the immediate environment that it is never comfortable, with the anxieties and above all with the understanding that they must stop the race to take care of themselves.
The general atmosphere in the first two episodes also hints at a romantic tension between the two that is about to erupt.
On the fringes of the plot are a host of other characters, colleagues, family members and others, who are also affected by the diagnosis.
One of them is Adi (Nelly Tager), Amalia's sister and a failed stand-up artist, who finally finds success when she puts on a punchline announcing herself as having cancer.
"Love Sick" was created by Rona Tamir, Tal Granit and Sharon Maimon, and the latter two also direct.
It's hard not to feel that all of this is familiar to us from somewhere: this trio is also behind the recent film adaptation of the play "Sof Tov" by Anat Gov, which also dealt with the diagnosis of cancer and its internalization, and Granit and Maimon are also the creators of "Mita Tova", another work that with the end of life.
Also, some of the central elements of the plot - the medical man who finds himself under the operating table, or a person who fakes a terrible fact in order to gain empathy, have already been seen at one level or another on the screen (details - below).
Even the name of the series is the same as the Hebrew name of a successful movie from 2017.
Still, although no wheel is reinvented here, "Love Sick" is an Israeli delicacy.
This is the next series that the State of Israel will fall in love with, and rightly so.
And although we do not lack thoughts about death on and off the screen, and perhaps precisely because of this, she invites the viewers to her for comfort.
Above all, and in a way that is not obvious for Israeli television, she is full of kindness.
There are no good and bad here, only people who are required to overcome a malignant disease, and more importantly - themselves.
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The series is carried first and foremost by its stars.
Zorer presents a wonderful heroine, with a huge gap between the sharp rationality she exhibits in her profession and the panic and ambiguity concerning her private dealings, which reaches the point of clearly irrational behavior.
These differences are so great that it is sometimes hard to believe that it is the same person, but that is actually the point: the diagnosis shakes Amalia so much that she is required to re-understand who she really is.
Tamm, who this week can also be seen shining in "Manaich" as a man in total breakdown in a drama that nods to Israeli politics (under completely different circumstances), demonstrates again what made him such a beloved actor: a rare charisma, a restrained expression of emotions using only the face, and complete assimilation into the character.
Around them there are a host of performances by other great actors, challenging as the dysfunctional nurse (and in an ungrateful role, which forces an excellent comedian to play a mediocre stage actress), Shaden Kanbora as an intern and the soft look of Amalia, Zohar Strauss as the considerate divorcee, Dana Samu as Micah's wife, Yoav Levy as his political advisor, Amnon Wolf and Mati Seri as colleagues at the hospital and more and more, and up to surprising appearances - Hanna Leslau as Amalia's mentor, and Rina Majleh as Micah's mother.
All of these actors are able to shine through the witty script, which manages to turn a number of potentially threatening situations into comedies or near-comes, without slipping into crude parody.
The subtle humor, another thing that is rare to see on the local screen, along with clever dialogues, are formed into a human and loving series that speaks to its viewers at eye level and with minimal pathos in relation to the seriousness of the subject, at least in its first two episodes (out of eight in total) that were sent to journalists.
The second chapter in the saga is more smeared than in the case of the dizzying sequence of events of the first chapter, but even during it it is easy to admit: "Lovesick" conquers, and for a long time there has not been such a good original series on Keshet 12's screen. One can only hope that it will continue.
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love sick
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