THE STORY – A chance encounter leads Aya to pick up a stranger at the airport. When he disappears, he leaves behind a gnawing hunger-one which perhaps only a complete stranger could fulfill.
THE CAST – Sarah Adler, Ulrich Thomsen, Yehezkel Lazarov & Lars Eidinger
THE TEAM – Mihal Brezis, Oded Binnun (Directors/Writers), Tom Shoval & Amital Stern (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 110 Minutes
Based on the Oscar-nominated live-action short “Aya,” “Dead Language” begins with the potential for a compelling existential story. After a chance encounter with a driver at an airport, a woman waiting for her husband’s flight randomly decides to assume the driver’s role and pick up a stranger instead. By impulsively wanting to connect with this stranger, she indulges in a “what if” experience far removed from her everyday routine. Their encounter is meant to convey an exciting spark that could open up a world of possibilities for the viewer to imagine. However, the film immediately loses intrigue once the characters leave the airport. It lacks chemistry between the actors, as well as confidence in expanding the idea into a full-length feature. Filmmakers Mihal Brezis and Oded Binnun, who also directed the short film, prioritize a concept over character and story development, making “Dead Language” a dull experience.
The film opens with some thematically intriguing lines of dialogue about looking back on various forms of communication people had left behind for future generations to discover, potentially leading to unexpected connections across time. Chance encounters speak directly to curiosity and impulse, as they do for the film’s protagonist, Aya (Sarah Adler). When Aya agrees to hold a chauffeur’s sign, and the designated passenger (Ulrich Thomsen) approaches before the chauffeur returns, she goes along with the mix-up almost without hesitation. On their way to the passenger’s hotel, both seem to be on the same page about a special connection about to develop. She drops him off, keeps a key to his hotel room, and returns home to her husband (Yehezkel Lazarov). When Aya discovers the passenger has abruptly disappeared, her sense of yearning intensifies, and her everyday foundation starts to crumble into a series of “what ifs.”
The strength of “Dead Language” lies in Sarah Adler’s central performance. Navigating overly indulgent dialogue and two-dimensional character development, Adler grounds an endlessly ambiguous concept in some form of reality. The film’s most engaging moments involve her character in heated discussions and quiet reflections about the inner conflict she faces.
One particular dinner sequence, in which Aya and her husband are on a double date with friends, provides insight into the intensity of her unfulfilled state of mind. When one of the friends suggests that Aya’s husband take a bag test, guessing 10 items in her bag for fun, he mentions that Aya usually keeps any keys in her pocket, just in case her bag gets stolen. When they go through Aya’s bag and discover the hotel key, she lets her imagination run and talks everyone through why she would enter the hotel room. It’s played off as a joke, but in that moment, Adler maintains a stunning intensity that suggests newfound clarity within herself.
The film occasionally finds intriguing moments, like the dinner sequence, to emphasize the character’s yearning and how it disrupts social expectations of how she ought to approach her restlessness. However, these moments are few and far between, acting as brief reminders of what could have been a more thoughtful examination of unspoken desire. A lot of the film’s potential quickly dissipates in the first act, as Aya’s initial conversation with the passenger meanders aimlessly and lacks a spark in chemistry. Without a strong emotional resonance conveyed, Aya’s yearning for another connection with him lacks urgency and sincerity.
“Dead Language” builds towards this yearning for a connection that isn’t very compelling in the first place, which makes Aya’s journey in the second act feel underwhelming. The film falls apart through a series of convoluted and incoherent events, from an extremely uncomfortable incident in a hotel room to a tragic customer service conversation. The film takes an ambitious and enigmatic turn in the final act, which feels a lot more intriguing than everything that comes before. There’s a playful, imaginative quality to these final moments, where Aya sees a familiar face, reminding her of a different first encounter she once had. Ultimately, these moments have little impact on the narrative and only add to the incoherent storytelling.
“Dead Language” had the potential to resonate as an existential character study about a woman’s search for meaning and genuine connection. But the film resists sincerity and leans heavily into a conceited “what if” idea. The script is full of ambiguous dialogue that aims to provoke interesting trains of thought but feels exhausting and dull to watch. At the center, it’s a complicated relationship drama told through a series of existential-driven ideas, lacking the specificity and nuance to work as one coherent feature.
