I saw this at the Tribeca Film Festival, which coincidentally just awarded one of the stars (Ohad Knoller) a best actor award for the film.<br /><br />I usually loath most gay films as there never seems to be any subject matter outside of the characters gayness.<br /><br />Yossi and Jagger however is a love story of two people caught in the middle of many forces - Careers, being out, military service, authority roles, and living day to day under international hostilities. Their homosexuality, though central to the story line, is portrayed as only one aspect of their incredibly complicated lives. In other words, they are portrayed as real people living their lives that is not consumed by their sexuality even as it overshadows everything they do.<br /><br />The film also firmly establishes the two leads enough that it is able to spend time developing the other characters as real people as well instead of as springboards to reflect gay jokes or innuendoes as most other gay films do.<br /><br />Perhaps because this film was made outside of the US it was able to portray its protagonists as people instead of story line characterisations.<br /><br />SPOILERS I also enjoyed the small joke in the film about how this was not a Hollywood movie. Even near the end when there is a "Hollywood" type moment between the two protagonists during a military ambush, the film returns to the truth with its ending that shows that not everything is about Hollywood happy endings. I particularly was touched by Yossi's nuanced statement of his relationship with Jagger to Jagger's family and the rest of his platoon by being able to answer the mother's questions of Jagger's personal favorites, and how certain characters were oblivious while others knew what was going on.