NewFest Spotlight: Sublet (Capsule Review)

I’m delighted to be covering a number of selections from the 32nd Annual New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival, NewFest. The festival runs October 16th-27th, 2020, and films are available to watch anywhere in the United States during that time.

Sublet
Directed by Eytan Fox
Ticket Information

A person may come into someone else’s life at exactly the right time, or perhaps when they least expect it, and those two may not be mutually exclusive. Fleeting whirlwind romances make for great movie premises, and that’s one way to describe this film, from director Eytan Fox, best known for “Yossi and Jagger” and two films that were particularly influential for me based on when I saw them: “Walk on Water” and “The Bubble.” Michael (John Benjamin Hickey) is an American travel writer who comes to stay for a few days in Tel Aviv only to discover that Tomer (Niv Nissim), the young woman whose apartment he is subletting, hasn’t actually made other sleeping arrangements. Though Michael has a husband back home, he and Tomer begin to form a relationship built on probing questions they ask each other that challenge their notions of what they’ve always known. Fox once again delivers an intriguing exploration of the multiculturalism that exists in Israel and the benefits that can come from it with this simple and entertaining dramedy, set for release sometime in 2021.