While recent films like Beaufort and Lebanon have made us see the horrors endured by the Israeli military during combat, very few filmmakers have chronicled the less violent, but undeniably terrible fact that life in the army can be quite dull. Even fewer times has this been shown by a female director using mostly female characters. Enter Talya Lavie's Zero Motivation, winner of the 2014 Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival, a lovable oddball of a film which forgoes the idea that Israeli cinema can only be about politics. Dana Ivgy (of the marvelous comedic troupe Tziporela) stars as Zohar, an aggressive young officer who prefers to spend her time playing Minesweeper rather than performing the menial tasks she's given. Her friend Daffi (Nelly Tagar) on the other side, tries hard to please her superiors but is so inefficient at her job that she needs a custom position created for her limited abilities.

Zohar and Daffi are stationed at a remote base where they must complete two years of mandatory military service; the idea of engaging in combat being as far away as their location. Lavie captures the mundaneness of army bureaucracy in a way so sincere that it can't help but feel like the darkest of humor. She does not have to try very hard to show that more often than not, army activities are unnecessary. And yet surprisingly Zero Motivation never strives to be outspokenly political, or an obvious message movie. Lavie focuses instead on developing her characters so that we can identify and empathize with them.

Zohar for example, spends a great part of the film trying to lose her virginity and when she "succeeds" half-way with a violent paratrooper, the film doesn't just turn into a rape avenge fantasia, it becomes a heartbreaking portrait of what coming-of-age is like for women. Ivgy turns in one of the year's most touching performances because she takes on the qualities of oddballs we love like Aubrey Plaza in Parks and Recreation and Ghost World's Thora Birch, but gives these qualities a recognizable humanity, instead of making them character quirks. As a film about the drollness of military life, Zero Tolerance is as effective as Office Space, but as a film about the never ending struggles of young women trying to find their place in a male-dominated world, it's completely on a league of its own.