The election results are in, and every Israeli liberal should be happy. But Tami can’t even fake a smile. You Don’t Say takes a realistic look at life in contemporary Israel, posing serious questions about the importance of pursuing idealism versus accepting reality.

“What’s with you?” Tami’s husband Roni asks. “You’re sour, judgmental …you’re neglecting yourself. It hurts me to see you like this.” “Hurts you?!” Tami retorts, dumbfounded.

Unlike her friends, who are happily dieting, gossiping, and planning backyard barbecues, Tami is in a rut. She’s put on weight, let her roots grow out, and started smoking again. Her friends and Roni won’t stop badgering her about how she’s letting herself go. But the more they point out her faults, the more she distances herself from them. At first, her melancholy seems unfounded, but as the story develops it becomes clear that even an optimist would be disappointed by the realities that have set in around her.

You Don’t Say takes an un-romantic look at married, middle-class life. Tami’s disenchantment with her life is clear. The film opens with a shot of Tami at her kitchen table, wearing an oversized T-shirt and flipping through a newspaper, while Roni sits in his boxers, smoking a cigarette. “We need a new washing machine,” he grunts. “You don’t say” Tami replies, distracted. without even looking up (the line from which the film takes its title). Her disaffection with her marriage is apparent.

But Roni isn’t the only disappointment in Tami’s life. She feigns interest and tries to hide her aversion, but it’s clear that when her friends talk about sleeping with younger men or gossip about their husbands she’s not impressed.

The only time Tami seems really happy is when she falls asleep next to her daughter reading. We understand why she’s begun to look for comfort in the bottom of cartons of vanilla frosting.

But the film succeeds at delivering an impartial look at each of the characters. There are no heroines or saints, just people struggling to live by the ethics they believe in. Even thought Tami is the film’s protagonist, a legitimate argument is made against her. “You’re jealous, that’s it!” Tami’s friend yells at her after a hot fight breaks out at a dinner party. “You’re jealous because you’re unhappy and we’re happy.” One can’t help but see the thread of truth in her friend’s accusation.

Rather than trying to shock, You Don’t Say seeks to capture life as it happens. Engaging and contemplative, it allows life’s mundane activities to drive its narrative, recognizing that contemporary life in Israel is fascinating enough that it doesn’t need a chase scene or heartbreaking romance. Events unravel naturally to lead to life’s little climaxes, which are monumental on a personal scale. The conversation over lunch with a friend, the car ride home, the gossip that passes through the kitchen during parties: these are the things that really shape a life.

It is these little things that make Tami uncomfortable in her own life. “I can’t walk down the street anymore. I can’t breath this air anymore. It’s repulsive,” she complains. “I need to wash my hands a hundred times a day because I’m sick of this country touching me.” She’s put herself in a difficult position. If she doesn’t adapt to the people around her and change her critical attitude, she risks losing her friends and husband.

Ultimately, You Don’t Say asks whether it’s more important to be morally right or to be happy. Should Tami work to connect herself to the people around her or allow herself to be isolated by her own ideals?