To Take a Wife (2004) poster
2004 · drama · marriage · mizrahi

To Take a Wife

Directed by Ronit Elkabetz, Shlomi Elkabetz1h 37m2004
ElsewhereIMDb7.1666TMDB6.215
  • heavy
  • measured
  • intense
  • bleak
Movie DNA

Heavy, measured, measured drama / marriage, grounded in texture. Nihilistic, intimate, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

The story takes place in Haifa, Israel, in 1979, during three days before the Shabbat. A young woman trying to raise three children, work from home, and observe the strict Moroccan traditions of her family finds herself at constant odds with her husband and her brothers, who want her to stay married and leave behind the notions of being loved and free.

Our read · To Take a Wife (2004) reads as a heavy, measured, grounded drama · marriage · mizrahi entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, measured in temperature, nihilistic in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Video previewNo trailer available for this one.
Where the cast leads
Where to watch
All options on JustWatch

Availability in the US · via JustWatch

More info & search links
Fingerprint

The shape of To Take a Wife

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want an intense Israeli drama dissecting a crumbling traditional marriage over three days.

ends bittersweetit leaves you shakensteady all the waygrips by minute 8attention 4/5earns its lengthsubtitles: full
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around

Skip it tonightYou want escapist romance or can't handle raw marital rage and cultural conflict.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Your take
Rate it
star-clip-1-0star-clip-2-0star-clip-3-0star-clip-4-0star-clip-5-0
React
Discussion

Discussion

cmd enter to post

What does your Movie DNA look like?

Rate a few films you've seen. We map your taste across the same twelve axes and find the films you'll actually want to watch tonight.

Calibrate yourself