It is fitting that the first cell phone was developed by Motorola-Israel. Israelis lost no time in embracing cell phone technology, turning being in touch into a national obsession, an obsession that cannot be entirely explained by the need to know where one's family and friends are when a bomb goes off. There is even a "kosher" cell phone available to Orthodox Jews …certainly the Chief Rabbinate of Israel or the young women in the film ARRANGED the film which this short film is paired, would not approve of the secular use to which the three characters in AROUND TRIP put their cell phones. A driver stops a young woman on the street and asks her to call him because he has dropped his cell phone and needs help finding it. She does and continues on her way to meet a blind date. From the get-go the blind date is a disaster, and as the tension escalates, she received a text message from the driver: "I can't stop thinking about you…"

Director Gur Bentwich has a knack for capturing the zaniness of the Zeitgeist. His surreal stoner fantasy "Planet Blue" (1995) is an Israeli cult classic. TLV (2000), a druggie romance set in Tel Aviv, Amsterdam, the ashrams of India, and Goa was also an Israeli hit. In AROUND TRIP, he takes only 12 minutes to nail it: the dating scene in the age of instantaneous communications and continuous partial attention, when any and every step of a relationship plays out in fast forward and then is replayed.

As the driver, Bentwich, with his thug's mug and hulking physical presence, is and unlikely and very funny Lothario. Other cast members give equally fine and spirited performances.

Kaj Wilson, The Berlin Jewish Film Festival Catalogue, May, 2009