19 May '11

“It gave us a highly engaging hour starring some highly engaging Orthodox Jews. The film-makers will be back to the Hill in no time at all.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“This was straight-up anthropology, no-frills peek inside a fascinating community. However, it aimed much higher than that and achieved much more, taking us behind the frock coats and the rituals to the beating hearts of the people beneath it.”
Matt Baylis, The Express

“In truth, there was always going to be a problem with delivering a representative picture of this subculture, given that one of distinctive characteristics of Hasidic Jews is an inclination to tell men with film cameras to go away. As a result, Wivell’s film depended on two rather uncharacteristic families.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“The only really fascinating story was rather thrown away, the tale of a woman who had lost 14st after a gastric-band operation but was in such agony that she had considered suicide.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

 “Here is grief, heroism, stupidity, tragedy, bitterness, hilarity, frustration, compassion, tedium, selflessness, unexpected ringworm diagnoses and, in one gloriously surreal sequence, a man dressed as a giant coffee cup waddling unsteadily out of the exit, his virulent blue sponge shoes flapping.”
Sarah Dempster, The Guardian

“There is a bluebottle in the bolognese. And that bluebottle is Contaldo. Given his comparatively high energy levels, the younger chef has inevitably been cast as the class clown – the bell-jingling jester to Carluccio’s slow-moving, spherical sage.”
Sarah Dempster, The Guardian

“It looks as if it’s been sponsored by the Australian government, consisting of an almost unbroken hymn of praise to the climate, the lifestyle and the opportunities of God’s Own Country.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent