Natalie Portman has always been considered more ambitious than most of her Hollywood peers. Opting to attend Harvard to study psychology in 1999, while placing her career on hold, she is a perfect example for actors everywhere that one shouldn’t rely on beauty and talent alone to survive in show business, brains are also important. “A Tale of Love and Darkness” further proves her abilities as a triple threat, in a film that Portman not only stars in– but wrote and directed– based on Israeli author Amos Oz’s bestselling memoir. Oh, and did I mention the film is in Hebrew with English subtitles?

“A Tale of Love and Darkness” is told from the perspective of Amos as an elderly man, reminiscing about his childhood in the budding State of Israel in the 1940s and ’50s. Amos (Amir Tessler) is a 10-year-old Jewish boy, not yet mature enough to comprehend the politics of the Middle East. He meets a young Arab girl at a party and they only speak a few words, but this is enough for him to contextualize the conflict around him. His father, Arieh (Gilad Kahana), is an author and is very aware of the political discourse in the country and tries to teach his son life lessons every day. His mother, Fania (Portman), puts on a brave face as the matriarch of the household amongst the turmoil, but she battles internal forces that eventually become too overwhelming. Sadly, the disappointment in the expectation of Jerusalem’s independence vs reality of the aftermath strains the family dynamic, to the point that Amos is forced to say a much too early goodbye to his mom whose closeness was that of a best friend.

In tackling the vast historical context of Middle East politics, “A Tale of Love and Darkness” is slower and much denser than any of Portman’s other works. Its appeal is that it is non-commercial, but that doesn’t mean it lacks cinematic inspiration. Some of the most vivid scenes come from the nightly bedtime stories Fania tells Amos. Just as the character, Sara in “A Little Princess” created fantasy worlds for her friends while in boarding school, the stories Fania tells are acted out in a similar fashion.

This film is not just Natalie Portman’s directorial debut, it has also been her passion project and she worked on it for over 10 years. It is an interesting choice for a filmmaker’s debut, as it definitely goes against the grain of formulaic Hollywood films. However, after watching, it seems like no one else could have pulled off this striking balance between romance and melancholy as well as Portman.

“A Tale of Love and Darkness” is rated PG-13 for thematic content and some disturbing violent images. 95 minutes. Now playing at the Landmark Theater.