Critics reviews

It's so tempting to treat "Eyes Wide Open" as the preposterous melodrama that it easily could have been, but Tabakman manages to make a well composed, unemphatic, and fleet-footed drama out of the overheated material.

Its scrupulous, humane sympathy gives this small, sorrowful film a glow of insight and a pulse of genuine, openhearted curiosity. It moves slowly and patiently through the ordeal of a single soul, illuminating in the process a cosmos of intense and hidden feeling.

It wins with excellent performances: Strauss never overplays his character's internal tension, nor does Danker camp up his youthful virility. Cinematographer Alex Schneppat frames the film gorgeously, and Tabakman knows where the occasional showy effect can be inserted for emphasis.

Set in Jerusalem and directed by newcomer Haim Tabakman, the film tells its circumscribed story with an exacting sense of place and two fine leading performances... The butcher's quiet resistance against first his lover and then the local morality police is beautifully handled with few words and persuasive emotion.