Despite its esoteric topic, ‘Footnote’ tells a rich story

Even if your first instinct is to think “Talmudic Studies, thanks but no thanks,” this Oscar nominee will surprise you with its robust tale of fathers and sons, academic resentments and rivalries, and the quiet lust for recognition and accolades.

Joseph Cedar, whose movies “Beaufort,” “Campfire” and “Time of Favor” all played Pittsburgh in some fashion, sets “Footnote” in Israel, where Eliezer Shkolnik and his adult son, Uriel, are scholars in the same field.

The elder, perpetually scowling Shkolnik (Shlomo Bar Aba) spent decades on research only to watch a fellow academic stumble upon a discovery that made his work unnecessary. He thrives on solitude, clamping on noise-canceling headphones so he can further shut out his wife at home.

The younger Shkolnik (Lior Ashkenazi) is a celebrated academic who is met with approval and awards at every turn. He’s a social being who, one observer whispers, “expects a kind of constant mild flattery.”

When, after years of rejection and bitterness, the father is named winner of Israel’s highest prize, congratulations give way to a thicket of complicated emotions and conundrums. “A man can be jealous of anyone except his son and pupil,” the honoree says, quoting the Babylonian Talmud.

But reciting it and living it are two different things in a movie inspired by real-life stories at Hebrew University’s Talmud department about rivalries, stubbornness and “eccentric professors who live with an academic mission that is bigger than life itself, even if its topic is radically esoteric.” The director says he “fell in love with them all.”

Cedar, who won the screenplay honor at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, enlivens his movie with an Amit Poznansky score, some comic moments and playful but economical storytelling devices.

All of this adds an urgency to the film, particularly since confrontations, accusations and bracing realizations happen but typically behind closed doors. That doesn’t change their weight or the measure of a man, though.