GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Michelle Ridley The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

RavenDarkholm I certainly let the title of this film mislead me for quite some time. Even after viewing the trailer, I still had absolutely no desire to watch this flick, that was my first mistake. My second mistake was Mili Avital. Based on some of her past films - many of which I could not sit through, I just didn't think she had the acting chops to pull off an interesting character. How wrong I was on both accounts. First of all, the trailer (as the case with many Israeli films) just does not do justice to this movie. From beginning to end, this movie is excellent. I commend the director Ayelet Menahemi for this quality production - from the direction to the pace of the movie and excellent all around cast.But the real compliment belongs to Ayelet Menahemi for bringing out the realistic and raw talent of the films leading lady. In Ms Avital's prior films, she was always cast as the pretty girl. Many or rather most of those films were horrendous along with her performances. But not here, her performance was believable, honest, raw and pitch perfect. She was rightfully nominated for an Israeli Oscar (Ophir) but lost out to the highly dramatic Ronit Elkabetz. This one film changed my entire perception of Ms Avital and now I highly anticipate her next Israeli project.

dromasca Kid melodramas can have very different destinies - they can reach (seldom) the sublime, and they can easily fall into cheap melodrama. It is probably the most wide spread mistake of people doing such movies to rely too much on the kid actors. These are usually good and catch the attention as long as they are on screen, but unless they have the talent and personality of a Shirley Temple or Dakota Fanning they quickly fade into forgetting.To their credit the makers of 'Noodle' did not make this mistake. Their Chinese kid-actor does his work, but is not made to be overwhelmingly cued, nor is this immigration light mode comedy completely based on him. On the contrary, the other principal characters in the story are quite interesting, especially the two sisters played by the Hollywood-stricken (but not very successful there) Miri Avital and by Anat Waxman, one of the best actress on Israeli screens and scenes nowadays.Neither does the film completely avoid the flaws of the commercial Israeli cinema, and the story line although intriguing as a premise lacks somehow credibility, and cannot avoid a deus-ex-machina solution to the final climax. Overall however the film works even better than some of the recent light-hearted comedies I have seen coming from Hollywood or other established cinema imperia.

Red-125 Noodle (2007) is an Israeli film directed and co-written by Ayelet Menahemi. Mili Avital plays the elegant Miri Calderone, an El Al flight attendant you has been twice widowed by war. Her life isn't empty, but it's emotionally sterile. Her Chinese maid rushes out of the house one day, and disappears. Miri and her sister find themselves caring for the young Chinese son of the Chinese woman. (The boy, whom they call "Noodle," is played well by BaoQi Chen.) He speaks no English and no Hebrew, and neither of the sisters speak Chinese.The results are predictable, but the film has unexpected depth. Neither Mili, nor her sister, nor her sister's estranged husband, are cardboard figures. Each has a story and each has a life. Some of the supporting cast, especially the woman who played the immigration officer, are excellent. The film is well edited and has good production values.One aspect of the movie surprised me. It could have been set in any developed country, not just Israel. Nothing about the situation--other than the manner in which Miri lost her husbands-- made this a film stamped, "Made in Israel." Whether this is good news or bad news depends on your outlook.This film will work well on DVD, although we saw it at the Dryden Theatre as part of the excellent Rochester Jewish Film Festival. It's worth seeing if you're in the mood for a solid movie that's more heartwarming than dramatic.

johno-21 I recently saw this at the 2008 Palm Springs International Film Festival where it was among the announced audience favorites at the end of the festival. It's a good story from Israeli director Ayelet Menahemi who co-wrote the screenplay along with Shemi Yarhin. It's a sweet little comedic drama about Miri (Mili Avital) who is a woman who is only in her late 30's but is already twice widowed. Mili works as a El Al flight attendant and lives with her sister Gila (Anat Waxman) who is having marriage problems with her husband Izzy (Alon Aboutboul). One day the apartment's Chinese housekeeper (Vicky Lyn) asks Miri if she can leave her six year old son (BoaQui Chen) for an hour and Miri agrees to watch him but the mother never returns. They can't communicate with the Chinese only speaking boy and they give him the nickname Noodle while they search for his mother and ultimately a way to reunite the mother and child through the help of Mati (Yiftach Klein) who is a family friend and former neighbor of Miri and Gila. The story is sometimes hard to believe but it's a good ride none the less and certainly a charming tale. Director Menahemi has had a very sporadic career in his 20 years as a director making only three documentaries, three narrative features and one short in all that time. With this, his third feature narrative, I would hope he is inspired enough by it's success to create more films. It won the Grand Jury Prize and Best Screenplay at the Montreal World Film Festival and I'm sure it's been a crowd pleaser at other festivals it's played besides Montral and Palm Springs. I would give this an 8.0 out of 10 and recommend it.