AJFF: 1 Long, Unfunny ‘Week’

“One Week and a Day” is billed as an Israeli comedy about a middle-aged couple dealing with grief by smoking marijuana. Perhaps it would have been funnier if I also had been smoking marijuana.

(Disclaimer: When reading this review, you may want to consider that during 18 days of winter break with three sons, my film watching was limited to “Home Alone,” a holiday classic; “Nine Lives,” a terrible switching-bodies movie my kids found to be hysterical”; and “Sing,” fun for kids and adults.)

After setting the initial scene — Vicky (Jenya Dodina) and Eyal Spivak (Shai Avivi) are burying their 23-year-old son after an illness — “One Week” offers an awkward neighbor conflict and no other action until the one-hour mark.

Eyal is the ultimate child, even before he gets high. When his neighbor tries to deliver a salad, he hides in the bushes, then tries to lock the visitor out of his house. His wife arrives home to catch him smoking a joint, and he hides from her on the staircase.

Vicky, who maintains a stoic, lifeless expression throughout the film, wants her husband to return to his job and take responsibility, but he blows her off.

Tomer Kapon, who plays the neighbors’ son, Zooler, redeems the film again and again with his stoner shenanigans. He plays air guitar, snoops around the Spivaks’ home, and rolls more joints than two people could smoke in an afternoon.

“One Week and a Day” takes a heartbreaking subject and turns it into a silly charade. I just don’t think it is funny enough to be billed as a comedy.

If you’re going to see one movie at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival about the loss of a child, see “Alone in Berlin” instead.