A dog is running through the streets of Jerusalem, panting, hardly stopping at any crossroad or street corner. A boy, Assaf, is running and yelling at the dog to stop. He has to return the dog to its owner—he works at a dog shelter and was told to follow it, trusting that the dog will lead him home. But who are they, and where could they be? Breathless and confused, the readers too are running up and down the streets of Jerusalem alongside these two characters for pages and pages. This is how David Grossman’s novel Someone to Run With begins.
Someone to Run With is not just any kind of novel. It’s the kind of novel that stays with you long after you’ve turned the last page, after you’ve tried to prolong its ending as much as you can. Its story is uniquely rooted in Israel, but at the same time, it speaks to a universal truth: the importance of connection and putting yourself at risk to save someone you love. It’s about how chaotic, turbulent, and dangerous life can be, but it’s also about the power of will and persistence. Translating a novel with such emotional gravitas into film is no easy feat, but the adaptation of Someone to Run With, directed by Oded Davidoff, rises to the occasion. It turns Grossman’s work into a cinematic experience that’s as moving and gut-wrenching as the original novel, due to the fast-paced scenes and the wonderful acting of its protagonists.
The novel itself, published in 2000, is an intimate look at the awkwardness and pain of adolescence—one that everyone can relate to. Grossman threads together the lives of two teenagers, Tamar and Assaf, whose paths cross through a lost dog that seems to be running with a purpose. While Tamar and Assaf only meet at a later stage of the story, we get a glimpse of the overall plot piece by piece, until it all comes together at the end. Dinka, the dog, allows Assaf to gather more and more pieces of the puzzle until he finally meets Tamar, and when he does, it’s nothing like he expected.
What makes the adaptation so compelling is how it honors Grossman’s sensibilities. The streets of Jerusalem, with their overlapping patchwork of old and new and their rich contrasts, are not just a backdrop but a character in themselves. The city becomes a labyrinth through which Tamar (portrayed by Bar Belfer) and Assaf (Yonatan Bar-Or) navigate their fears, intuition, and survival skills. Growing up in Jerusalem myself, I must admit that I haven’t felt at such risk or exposure to danger, although there is an inherent vulnerability in being young and precarious, not knowing where your choices may lead. We would go out and drink on the weekends, bump into strangers, and stay out until very late, but we would always find our way home at the end of the night. In the inner world of the novel, however, many adults are either distant, absent, or outright cruel, making the world feel like a far less safe place.
Grossman has often been celebrated for his ability to capture the inner lives of his characters with precision and empathy, and Someone to Run With is no exception. The film stays true to this spirit, using subtle performances and unspoken gestures to convey the emotional weight of the story. There’s an authenticity in Grossman’s writing—in the way he understands his characters’ psychology and describes their moods and stream of consciousness in great detail. There was a risk of losing that aspect when shifting from page to screen, but thanks to the actors’ performances—and especially Bar Belfer, who plays Tamar at the age of seventeen—these nuances are preserved in the film adaptation.
Whether you’ve read the novel or not, the film offers something rare: a glimpse into the past, to the early 2000s in Jerusalem. It follows the story of two teenagers who get swept away in a purpose that is bigger than themselves, proving their tenacity and courage as they try to defeat the dangerous forces that threaten them. It’s not a light watch, but definitely one that honors contemporary Israeli literature and film—bold on the one hand, and nuanced and thought-provoking on the other. At the end of the day, we are all looking for someone to run with us: through thick and thin, weathering the storm until it passes.