{"id":23791,"date":"2026-10-30T16:04:55","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T00:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=23791"},"modified":"2026-10-30T16:05:45","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T00:05:45","slug":"a-body-that-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2026\/10\/30\/a-body-that-works\/","title":{"rendered":"A Body That Works"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Netflix trailer: <\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mOaz-N53bvY?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>A mediocre name for a phenomenal series.<\/p>\n<p>Then again, it&#8217;s translated from Hebrew, it was probably better in its initial iteration.<\/p>\n<p>What surprised me was &#8220;A Body That Works&#8221; was hiding in plain sight, i.e. on Netflix, not some obscure outlet that requires a payment that most people don&#8217;t want to pony up.<\/p>\n<p>But I&#8217;d never heard of it!<\/p>\n<p>But it came up in my endless research of international shows and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s just the point, they don&#8217;t make shows like this in the U.S. ever. It&#8217;s closer to Bergman than Spielberg. Not that it&#8217;s slow, but the subject matter is everyday life, which is heavier than the fantasies sold on screens in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>So what we&#8217;ve got here is a successful thirtysomething couple who can&#8217;t have a baby, multiple miscarriages have ended their hopes. Therefore, they decide to employ a surrogate.<\/p>\n<p>But this ain&#8217;t no slapstick comedy, this is real life.<\/p>\n<p>And what makes this show so great is Rotem Sela as Elie is better looking than the average bear, not a Hollywood stunner but more like the best looking girl in your high school class, someone who seems real as opposed to unapproachable. But as the series unfolds&#8230; Elie is so neurotic and controlling such that no man would want to be involved with her.<\/p>\n<p>This never happens in American stuff. The beautiful actress is the center of attention, the story revolves around her, we&#8217;re supposed to fantasize and salivate over her, an unattainable icon with no rough edges who may be abused by the system, but is always in the right.<\/p>\n<p>Once again, that is not Elie.<\/p>\n<p>As for the surrogate, Chen&#8230; She&#8217;s a single parent who has trouble making ends meet. She and her son are living in her father&#8217;s apartment, and he isn&#8217;t thrilled about it. Then again, when they finally move out&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Chen is doing it for the money. But surrogates don&#8217;t have a great image in society. She is shunned, and so is her son. But she signed up and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Elie is constantly trying to control her. In an OCD way. Elie becomes obsessed about things and instead of keeping her mouth shut, she says them and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>As for Elie&#8217;s husband Ido, played by Yehuda Levi, right at the start his mother is giving him sh*t about his wife. How he does whatever she says and the parents don&#8217;t see him anymore. I&#8217;ve lived a variation on this theme, it is painful&#8230;and one thing is for sure, no one is understanding.<\/p>\n<p>So Ido has to sell out, go to work for the man, at the biggest law firm in Israel, to pay the surrogacy bill, since the couple&#8217;s savings have been burned up with multiple rounds of IVF. But they want a baby&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>As for Elie, she&#8217;s a book editor who doesn&#8217;t know how to keep her mouth shut and go along. Movie honcho Tomer is writing an autobiography and she tells him the truth, which is very rare in the entertainment business, VERY rare.<\/p>\n<p>And Tomer is played by&#8230; LIOR RAZ! You know, DORON FROM &#8220;FAUDA!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And Tomer listens to Elie and starts writing from the heart, without compromise, but he also won&#8217;t put up with her b.s., he calls her on it. Such that Elie has to confront her own issues, which she has never done, believing she is always right, she&#8217;s wound so tight it&#8217;s surprising she doesn&#8217;t crack. And Raz as Tomer does it so well, neither being a bully nor a doormat.<\/p>\n<p>But the heart of the story is what goes on between Elie and Ido&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>This is my kind of series.<\/p>\n<p>If you want light entertainment, if you want to escape, &#8220;A Body That Works&#8221; is not for you. Not because it&#8217;s dreary and heavy, but because it&#8217;s REAL! There is an argument between Elie and Ido wherein Ido finally calls Elie on her sh*t and ultimately the entire relationship hangs in the balance.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s been pushed too far, he can no longer bow down and take it.<\/p>\n<p>But not only is Ido standing up for himself, Elie&#8217;s identity and behavior are now in the mix and you realize that this argument may become determinative.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been there. You probably have too. What starts as a run-of-the-mill argument escalates and escalates and suddenly you&#8217;re in territory that you didn&#8217;t anticipate. Everything was hunky-dory just a minute ago, but years worth of anger are now in play and&#8230;where do you go from there?<\/p>\n<p>As I&#8217;ve said numerous times previously, the Israelis and the Danes make the best television. And &#8220;A Body That Works&#8221; proves it.<\/p>\n<p>Now it&#8217;s not like the Israelis don&#8217;t know what they&#8217;ve got, &#8220;A Body That Works&#8221; was the country&#8217;s highest rated drama in 2023. And when it hit Netflix, it was in the top ten in France, Germany, Poland, Romania, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Italy. And if you can find the common thread amongst those nations&#8230;I certainly can&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>But not in America. We can&#8217;t handle real. But the issues in &#8220;A Body That Works&#8221; are the core of life. Relationships, how you maintain them, what your life desires are, how you handle loneliness. In every episode I resonated, I said to myself  I&#8217;VE BEEN THERE!<\/p>\n<p>I hope I haven&#8217;t overhyped you. I think I&#8217;ve scared off those who wouldn&#8217;t be interested, but as for those still sticking around&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>We live in an era of vapidity, seen nowhere as much as in popular music. Oh, there&#8217;s money to be made, but it&#8217;s mostly empty calories. It&#8217;s commerce, not art.<\/p>\n<p>And this happened over at Netflix. At one time the streamer was known for its unconstrained alliance with artists, allowing creators to do what they wanted. But suddenly focusing on the bottom line, these creators severed the relationship and went elsewhere. Sure, the masses might want lowest common denominator, then again, when something is truly phenomenal they resonate with it just like the highbrows. It&#8217;s shows like this that build a platform, in the case of Netflix it was &#8220;House of Cards,&#8221; and for HBO it was &#8220;The Sopranos.&#8221; There were other successful projects previously, but none that captured the zeitgeist.<\/p>\n<p>You want to leave the theatre or turn off the set and feel numb, unable to shake what you&#8217;ve experienced, because it resonates with you and your life, something no superhero extravaganza can ever achieve.<\/p>\n<p>Not that &#8220;A Body That Works&#8221; is either &#8220;House of Cards&#8221; or &#8220;The Sopranos.&#8221; It&#8217;s not that good. It&#8217;s not era-defining. But it&#8217;s on the road, it&#8217;s on track, and if you watch it you&#8217;ll know what I&#8217;m talking about.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Netflix trailer: A mediocre name for a phenomenal series. Then again, it&#8217;s translated from Hebrew, it was probably better in its initial iteration. What surprised me was &#8220;A Body That Works&#8221; was hiding in plain sight, i.e. on Netflix, not some obscure outlet that requires a payment that most people don&#8217;t want to pony up. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-television"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-6bJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23791"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23794,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23791\/revisions\/23794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}