The 17th annual Pittsburgh Jewish Israeli Film Festival returns to the SouthSide Works Cinema, along with a half-dozen other venues, with a lineup that showcases Claymation, factual and coming-of-age stories and one tale of diet dropouts turned sumo wrestlers.

Here is a sampling of reviews for movies playing today through Wednesday. The festival continues through March 21.

4 stars = Outstanding
Ratings explained

Toni Collette provides the voice of Mary, an 8-year-old in Australia who randomly chooses a pen pal from a New York phone book, in "Mary and Max."

Mary is lonely, friendless and loves sweetened condensed milk. Max is lonely, friendless and loves chocolate hot dogs. Each lives half a world away -- Mary in Australia and Max in New York City. But the two find one another and, in doing so, find themselves.

"Mary and Max" is the latest film by director, writer and designer Adam Elliot. Delightfully told in Claymation, "Mary and Max" is a story about 8-year-old Mary's quest to find a friend who understands her. At the post office one day, Mary randomly picks a name out of the New York City phone book and decides to write to her new American pen pal, Max, asking him everything from what his favorite color is to where babies come from.

On the other side of the world, Max Horowitz receives Mary's letter. A middle-age former mental patient who suffers from panic attacks and obesity, Max reacts to the letter with caution but eventually responds, telling Mary that babies come from eggs laid by rabbis and opening up about his fears and confusions in dealing with other people.

Mary and Max are an unlikely couple. But thousands of miles in distance and nearly four decades apart in age are not factors when it comes to friendship. Hilarious and heartbreaking, the film follows our two protagonists as they stand by each other through the troubles and joys they both experience in life.

It's impossible not to care for the lovable characters, made colorful by the witty and charming script, as well as the voice talents of Toni Collette and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

-- Elham Khatami for the Post-Gazette

3 1/2 stars = Very good
Ratings explained

It's been said that doing the right thing isn't always popular. This doesn't stop Eli (Yuval Shevach), the adolescent protagonist in Ori Ravid's 2008 film "Eli & Ben," from standing up for what's right -- even if it means ridicule, upset friends or a bloody nose in his future.

But Eli didn't always champion for justice. During the 89-minute film, he transforms from a classroom trickster to a watchdog for the bullied after his architect father, Ben (Lior Ashkenazi), is suspected of white-collar corruption.

At first, Eli is convinced his father is innocent. Once he starts noticing holes in his dad's stories, he's determined not to follow in his deceitful footsteps. This leads Eli to shape up his behavior and encourage his father to do the same.

These serious moments are balanced with more tender ones, such as when Eli unexpectedly finds love or bonds with a cop involved with his dad's case.

"Eli & Ben," recommended for audiences 12 and up, is a touching and, at times, wisely complex coming-of-age tale with a universal message about morality.

In Hebrew, with English subtitles.

-- Sara Bauknecht, Post Gazette staff writer

3 stars = Good
Ratings explained

When it comes to the 1936 Olympic Games, Gretel Bergmann is in a no-win situation.

The Jewish athlete left her native Germany for England in the early 1930s and won the British high-jump competition. But the same father who sent her to London says she must return to Germany for the Olympic preparations. If she refuses, her family will be arrested or worse.

Germany intends to use Bergmann as bait because the United States has threatened to boycott the competition if it bans Jewish athletes. Although she vows, "They can force me to return but not to win a medal for their fatherland," her competitive streak and Jewish pride kick in.

Gretel (Karoline Herfurth) finds herself rooming with a farm girl who comes with a secret in this movie based on the true story of Gretel Bergmann-Lambert but mixing some fiction with fact. After you see the film, do an Internet search for "Dora Ratjen" for more about the story.

Director Kaspar Heidelbach does an excellent job of re-creating the time period, mounting anti-Jewish sentiment and the political games played on and off the field.

In German with subtitles.

-- Barbara Vancheri, Post Gazette movie editor

3 stars = Good
Ratings explained

Herzl, 35 years old and 342 pounds or more, just can't win. The leader of his diet club in Israel suggests he's "turning into a whale," his boss claims he's not presentable, and his mother sabotages his diet even as she berates him about his weight and single status.

When Herzl gets a job at a Japanese restaurant, though, he discovers sumo wrestling. He swears off dieting, enlists some butterball buds to join him in training and tries to recruit an experienced trainer to take on the newbies. All of this coincides with his courtship of a divorced social worker also struggling with her weight.

"A Matter of Size" tracks Herzl and his friends, most confronting life-changing challenges of their own, as they practice all the right moves, including wearing the mawashi or thick belt. This opening night selection, a certain crowd pleaser, is part romcom, part buddy picture and part underdog sports movie.

"Does everyone have to be thin?" Herzl challenges his fellow dieters, suggesting it's possible to be fat and happy. Fat and healthy is a question left for another day or production, although the sumo preparation is rigorous.

Its formula may be familiar but its sumo setting and faces are grade A fresh.

In Hebrew with subtitles.

-- Vancheri

3 stars = Good
Ratings explained

Poor Gertrudis isn't just camera shy but camera phobic, and who can blame her?

In 1897 Argentina, as a curly-haired girl with large round glasses, Gertrudis is instructed by her mother to look down when a photographer takes a family portrait. That way, her "squint won't be as noticeable."

Through the years, wallflower Gertrudis naturally has drifted to the back of any group photo and tried to hide behind the others. She matures, is married off to a widowed rancher and produces three sons and two daughters.

When her husband hires an itinerant French photographer to make a family portrait, she is quietly fascinated by the former war correspondent who documented horror and has an appreciation for a new form of beauty and the art of surrealism that goes with it.

"Camera Obscura," with a leading lady who looks like a cross between actresses Jane Adams and Shelley Duvall, is about recognizing beauty in a well-set table, an artfully arranged tray of flowers, the surrealistic sandwiching of disparate images and in a woman who for too long saw herself as others did.

It skips through the years, leaving us to ask and answer our own questions. It's lovely and, appropriately, artistically rendered but somewhat slight in the end.

In Spanish and Yiddish with English subtitles.

-- Vancheri

2 1/2 stars = Average
Ratings explained

Israel is a country at war. But the threat isn't just the outside world, it also comes from within.

Igaal Niddam's "Brothers" is an interesting look into the clash between the secular and the religious in modern Israeli society. The film is told from the viewpoint of two brothers, secular Dan, who lives and works in a kibbutz, and religious, orthodox Aaron, a lawyer and scholar who lives in Brooklyn. The two meet in Israel after several years and struggle to overcome the religious and social divides that separate them.

Niddam tells their story straightforwardly and simply, and at the same time addresses a crucial argument overtaking Israel today -- that of the separation of church and state. But the story line tends to fall into melodrama. Part of the problem is that the characters are too one-dimensional. For much of the film, the two brothers don't seem to represent much more than two sides of an argument.

But "Brothers" is worth a look if only for a valuable and relevant lesson in current events.

In Hebrew with subtitles.

-- Khatami

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