THE FILM

The Goldberg brothers are, to put it mildly, estranged.

Matthew Goldberg is a former child prodigy pianist whose performance career, marriage, and financial situation have catastrophically deteriorated. As the story opens, he suffers an on-stage nervous breakdown. His manager drops him. His wife files for divorce. He checks into rehab.

Simon Goldberg is a long-suffering middling academic who has scored an unexpected hit when his Kabbalah self-help book becomes a bestseller. Reinventing himself as a self-styled spiritualist, Simon has left Manhattan and moved to Israel, where he has accepted a position at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and purchased a vineyard in Ein Karem. Meanwhile, he struggles to complete a new book about the Tzfat Circle.

Desperately needing to borrow money from the Goldberg family trust (which Simon controls), Matthew reluctantly joins his brother on the winery. There, against the backdrop of an eclectic and modern Jerusalem, the brothers must confront both their long-simmering animosity as well as their mutual attraction to Einav — the viticulturist who happens to be Simon's new girlfriend.

A darkly comedic story of two brothers and a Yerushalmi love triangle, Goldberg Variations is also a film about wine-making, classical music, and the mysteries of Jewish mysticism.