Raya says she wants to feel like the lead actress in her own life but 'I'm not even a supporting character.' Victor is increasingly glum and distant. Their golden voices have been deployed on behalf of others for decades and their real selves, in this new environment, are emerging uncomfortably. The Frenkels and their relationship are tested as they have to re-invent themselves. But starts don't happen at all once and do not always feel as fresh as we hope. Victor toasts to 'a fresh start' on their first night in Israel. As she talks to this caller, some of her true self begins to come through, more than she has allowed herself to be for many years. She can tell he will appreciate an older, dissatisfied wife mode. Raya/Margarita seamlessly shifts into a different character for one caller. And yet, in one of the film's best scenes, when it comes time for her to be not real-life 62-year-old Raya but fantasy-figure 22-year-old virgin Margarita on the phone, Belkin shows us how the actress in Raya rises to the occasion and even enjoys being a performer again.

She is so embarrassed by it that she tells him she is a telemarketer.

The only Russian-language voice jobs they can find are an unpaid public service announcement about what to do in case of a toxic chemical attack for Victor and being a phone sex operator for lonely Russian newcomers for Raya. What is more unsettling is not being able to find 'golden voices' jobs that meet their standards of professionalism and artistic value. Standing in line to pick up gas masks to be used if Saddam Hussein drops a chemical bomb on Israel seems as ordinary a part of their new life as taking Hebrew lessons. This is not a ' Perfect Strangers'-style sitcom filled with laugh-track-able cutesy misunderstandings and malapropisms. But the film touches very lightly on the cultural differences. Victor suspects that a small utility box on the wall is some sort of spyware, reminding us that he has always had to be conscious of being observed. He drops them at an apartment he found for them and leaves them there. A nephew once named Boris is now called Baruch. The Frenkels, like the actors who play them and co-writer/director Evgeny Ruman, are among the over 900,000 Jews who emigrated to Israel as the Soviet Union crumbled in the 1980s.

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