‘Golda’ review: Helen Mirren acts through a mask in bad Meir biopic

When the movie “Golda” was first announced, it sounded like surefire Oscar gold. 

An embattled historical figure, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, was to be played by Helen Mirren, the celebrated British actress who won an Academy Award for portraying Queen Elizabeth II at one of the monarch’s lowest moments in life. 

But much as Mirren’s Meir is caught off-guard by Egypt and Syria’s attack on Israel at the start of the movie — the first strike of the 1973 Yom Kippur War — I was unpleasantly surprised by how poorly made “Golda” turned out to be.

Directed by Guy Nattiv, the sluggish film caves to the worst tendencies of forgettable biopics. Mirren is ensconced in prosthetics and a gray wig in hopes that a lookalike transformation can distract from bad writing and a total lack of insight. 

Predictably, the caked-on makeup doesn’t make up for the movie’s many flaws.

Game though she is, the actress never stops being Helen Mirren in a mask. She’s not a real person, but a dame in disguise. 

Her so-so performance is weighed down all the more by a disappointing dearth of context about this fascinating woman. “Golda” is set solely during the 19-day Yom Kippur War, a painful and consequential time for Israel, and is mostly depicted through undramatic strategy sessions between Meir, generals and advisors across only a few small rooms. It’s a cheap-looking movie.

Of course, choosing a small-but-mighty moment in a subject’s life isn’t always a rotten choice. 

Mirren’s superb “The Queen” took place during the mournful days after Princess Diana’s death, and the electrifying “Frost/Nixon,” starring Frank Langella, showed Richard Nixon during his bombshell interviews with David Frost post-presidency.

But a lot more movies and TV shows have been made about Elizabeth II and Nixon than there are about Meir. It would be nice to get to know her.

The viewer would understand and care more about her actions during the war if we delved deeper into her early life in the Russian Empire and Wisconsin before she came to the Middle East.

Here, she briefly speaks to Henry Kissinger (Liev Schreiber) about her childhood trauma toward the end, but by then the film has already flatlined.

For the most part, the role is written and performed as steely and resolute. Such was Meir’s public reputation. Her only vulnerability we witness is that she is dying from cancer, and therefore makes frequent doctor visits in secret and starts losing her hair in the bathtub. She demolishes packs of cigarettes, and Nattiv’s only directorial flair is filming the billowing smoke.

It’s easy to forget there are any other actors in the film, as they are a lineup of Mr. Cellophanes.

Their roles are criminally underwritten and contribute little to the story but basic exposition. Even Schreiber’s Kissinger is an afterthought.

The closest anybody comes to having an emotional life is French actress Camille Cottin as Meir’s supportive secretary Lou Kaddar. Cottin, brilliant on the TV series “Call My Agent,” has a forceful presence that easily announces itself. Still, there is only so much she can do here. There is a fantastic English-language movie somewhere in this performer’s future. 

Unfortunately, the same is true of a brilliant movie about Golda Meir. 

Eventually, somebody will make one.