Losing Alice

At the center of the series is Alice, a 48-year-old film director whose professional dissatisfaction deepens after years devoted to raising her family.[6] Her encounter with Sophie, a 24-year-old screenwriter, offers a route back into filmmaking but also draws her toward an increasingly consuming obsession.[2] The story connects the pursuit of artistic relevance and success with jealousy, guilt, fear of ageing, and relationships among women.[5]

The series combines psychological and erotic tension with a story that moves between reality and hallucination.[4] Avin conceived it as a homage to cinema and film noir, with a female creator at its center.[4] Alice’s involvement with Sophie extends beyond a professional collaboration, reaching into her marriage, family life, and sexuality.[2]

Avin wrote the series over three and a half years, developing Alice after returning to Israel from work on an American television pilot and reassessing her own direction.[1] The story was not based on real events; its emotional concerns included the erosion of a relationship, growing older in a culture that worships youth, and the fear of having nothing left to say.[1] Family figured in this conception as both an anchor and a potential distraction from other ambitions.[1]

A central creative aim was to challenge the familiar male-centered presentation of the femme fatale.[1] Avin wanted to portray sexual fantasy, desire, and flirtation from a woman’s perspective, including the perspective of a woman Alice’s age.[1] The series also addressed the difficulty of balancing creative work, family, and personal fulfillment.[1]

A 2019 announcement introduced the production as a dark psychological thriller about a filmmaker over 40 who feels professionally stuck and overshadowed by her successful actor partner.[7] It presented Sophie as a mysterious screenwriter in her twenties whose talent, youth, and sexuality draw Alice into an obsession.[7] HOT’s production leadership, including Dori and Yoni Paran and Mirit Tovi, supported Avin’s exploration of dark, female-centered material and gave her creative freedom.[4]

Lihi Kornowski was cast as Sophie following her first audition, while finding the right performer for Alice proved more difficult.[1] Earlier pairings tended to produce a mother-daughter dynamic rather than the relationship Avin sought.[1] Zurer joined late in the process, bringing a dynamic with Kornowski based on mutual admiration and fear between two women.[1]

Zurer initially declined an invitation to audition over Skype while she was in Los Angeles, feeling that the character was too complex for a remote reading.[6] Later, after she had flown her injured mother to Israel, Avin contacted her to ask whether she happened to be in the country, and they arranged an in-person screen test.[6] During filming, Zurer maintained boundaries rather than developing personal closeness with Kornowski.[1]

Half of the production crew were women.[1] For intimate scenes, Avin researched actors’ and directors’ accounts of filming sex scenes, then used planned choreography and precise rehearsals to reduce confusion and discomfort.[1] Movements of bodies and hands were specified in advance.[1] One particularly demanding sequence occurs in the seventh episode, when Alice directs her actor-husband in a sex scene that becomes uncontrolled.[1]

The completed series screened at Canneseries before its Israeli broadcast and was also featured in the global online film festival We Are One in spring 2020.[4][8] Its Israeli premiere took place on HOT television and VOD on June 18, 2020.[2] The first season consists of eight episodes, with a later listing giving each episode a running time of 45 minutes.[2][9]

Apple acquired the series for international distribution, with English dubbing and subtitles planned.[6] It reached Apple TV+ on January 22, 2021, with its original Hebrew version made available internationally and translations into dozens of languages.[5][4] The international release brought responses from countries including Portugal, China, Spain, and Japan.[4]

In February 2021, Avin announced an agreement for a second season conceived as an anthology with a different cast and story.[4] The proposed connecting elements were the neo-noir setting and the figure of an artist or creator who sells their soul.[4] A November 2022 listing still recorded one season of eight episodes; the available information establishes the announcement and the later listing, but not the production of a second season.[9][4]

A chance meeting on a train brings Alice into contact with Sophie, a young screenwriter who wants Alice to direct her script.[2] Alice was once a recognized filmmaker, but her career has stalled while her husband David, a successful actor, continues to flourish.[2] She and David have three young daughters.[6]

Sophie’s talent, youth, and sexuality awaken Alice’s interest, which develops into an obsession affecting her professional, family, and sexual life.[2] As Alice becomes involved in the new project, she compromises her moral integrity in pursuit of power, relevance, and success.[5] The relationship becomes increasingly difficult to read, blurring who has entered whose life and which woman is leading the other.[2]

Zurer plays Alice, Kornowski plays Sophie, and Gal Toren plays David.[2] The supporting cast includes Hali Goldberg as Tami and Yossi Marshak as Tamir.[2] The story’s journeys take place along the Tel Aviv–Binyamina route, with Israel Railways appearing repeatedly.[10]

The relationship between motherhood and creative work is one of the series’ central concerns.[1] Alice’s dissatisfaction lies beneath the surface of an established family life until her encounter with Sophie brings it into the open.[11] Her subsequent trajectory involves dismantling that life in an effort to rebuild it.[11]

The contrast between the two women brings questions of age, artistic relevance, and desire into the same relationship.[1] Alice’s fear of professional irrelevance intersects with Sophie’s youth and creative promise, while the pursuit of success leads Alice into morally fraught choices.[5] Female sexuality is presented from a woman’s point of view rather than solely through the conventional male-centered femme-fatale framework that Avin sought to challenge.[1]

The story’s movement between reality and hallucination forms part of its homage to film noir.[4] A Maariv review characterized the smoky, gray cinematography and prominent music as giving the series an atmosphere less conventionally associated with Israeli television, while emphasizing the plot’s repeated reversals.[10] Its miniseries format gives it a film-like progression, with a beginning, middle, and end resembling those of a movie.[6] Avin’s proposed anthology continuation would have retained this neo-noir world and the theme of a creator bargaining away their integrity rather than continuing with the same characters.[4]

The series’ passage from HOT to Apple TV+ brought an Israeli, Hebrew-language production to an international streaming audience in multiple languages.[2][4] Its festival appearances at Canneseries and We Are One preceded that wider streaming release.[4][8] In February 2021, it was listed among 11 nominees in the Best Drama category at the Israeli television awards.[12]

The series also appeared in contemporary reading and viewing selections about Israel and Jewish culture.[5][13] The Center for Israel Education’s January 2021 reading list included Jennifer Vinyard’s January 26 New York Times article, “In ‘Losing Alice,’ Ayelet Zurer Burns It All Down.”[13] That listing provided a citation to the article rather than a separate account of the series.[13]