Lior Ashkenazi does great work. He watches his children struggling at home, knowing that he's unable to give them the attention they deserve.
By ARYEH DEAN COHENlior ashkenazi 88(photo credit: )
How do you like your police dramas? Action packed, like CSI, or focused on psychological chess games, like Prime Suspect? Those who prefer the latter will more likely want to start guessing just who kidnapped Hagar in Channel 10's new Wednesday night police drama Ha'emet Ha'aruma (The Naked Truth)
It's in the spirit of that UK classic that the brothers Barbash (Tironut, Miluim, Melach Ha'aretz and My First Sony) have fashioned this slow-moving but gripping series about a young girl who vanishes, leaving a trail of mystery and cluttered family relationships behind.
Hagar disappeared after cutting her hair and going "a little crazy" after a fight with her mother Mika (the excellent Yevgenya Dodina). Now everyone's looking for her, including Dotan, her dad (the always fantastic Yoram Hatab, Litfos Et Hashamayim) and the determined and complex detective Gabai (Lior Ashkenazi, who worked with the Barbashes in Melach Ha'aretz, in some of the best work of his TV career).
There's hardly a moment played outside the station house in the first two episodes. To supply most of the fireworks, the Barbashes rely on the tense relations between the former couple Mika and Dotan and his hatred of her new husband.
There are, it seems, plenty of skeletons in Hagar's closet and enough in her parents' to fill a graveyard. But, it's not just the missing girl's family that has its hands full. Gabai himself must take periodic time outs from the investigation to check in on his wife, Tamar. On one such occasion, via Webcam, his children inform him that she's having another one of her episodes. Ashkenazi does great work. He watches his children struggling at home, knowing that he's unable to give them the attention he'd like and they deserve. As such, he wonders if, one day, they too may act similarly to Hagar.
Another clue is provided by Na'ama (Yuval Scherf), a close friend of Hagar's who looks so much like her that when she turns up at the police station outside Gabai's door at the end of the first episode, he even calls out "Hagar," thinking she's come to report in. Indeed, a similar trick - a mystery cell-phone call seemingly from Hagar to her mom - ended the second episode. To us, it seemed a little forced, like the show's creators were trying to quickly stick in a little plot twist to move things along in a series that can be a bit plodding at times.
Occasionally we caught ourselves checking the clock.
Is she alive and just playing everyone? Was there more to the relationship between stepfather and stepdaughter than meets the eye? Did she really try to kill herself? And, does Na'ama know a lot more than she's telling so far? All these questions should be addressed in future episodes.
Channel 10 is devoting a decent web-presence to the show on their site nana10.co.il. When our video struck out on the taping job we were able to watch the series online. Also, there is a section that allows visitors to read backgrounds on all the characters and guess just whom they think is behind the evil deeds - sort of like Clue, but without Professor Plum in the dining room with a rope. There are some definite Twin Peaks parallels here as well, with a "Who Killed Laura Palmer" vibe going on.
Most of the real work, however, is on the screen. All the acting is top-rate. The script, however, especially when it comes to Hatab's lines, seem to fall too often into simple angry repetition.
Still, high-level dramas of this kind are few and far between in the reality show-clogged schedules of Israeli television. Book a seat for this police probe, and start guessing whodunit along with the rest of Israel.
Ha'emet Ha'aruma screens on Wednesday nights at 9 on Channel 10.
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