Bat-Adam also starred in the film, alongside Yehoram Gaon, and wrote the screenplay in collaboration with Tzvika Kertzner.

When it was announced that the book would be developed into a film, all the major producers, actors, directors and screenwriters in Israel wanted to be involved.

At the start, Golan approved his house-director, Boaz Davidson's request to direct, with the understanding that he would finish up his current obligations, then work on The Lover.

But personnel issues continued right up to the start of filming, when the cinematographer David Gurfinkel was brought in at the very last moment.

[2] Adam (Yehoram Gaon) and Asia (Michal Bat-Adam) are a married couple, who no longer have sex.

Adam asks his young Arab worker, Naim, for help – and the two break into the grandmother's apartment, to try and find clues to Gavriel's whereabouts.

Around this time, Dafi's schoolmate Tali sets her sights on Adam – she corners him, undresses in front of him, and in spite of his protestations, touches him.

One night, Adam finds a piece of metal from the car Gavriel is driving at the site of a hit and run accident.

Gavriel tells him that he was drafted to fight at the front in the war, and escaped with the help of a Haredi group who came to cheer up the troops.

[2] The film created a media scandal in Israel when it was released, due to the perception that it presents marital infidelity as a positive thing.

[4] In her review in Haaretz, Rachel Gordin wrote that "the film manages to touch on very real points of the viewers' emotions" thanks to the character of Naim as portrayed by Awas Khatib, but that "it otherwise never really extends beyond the realm of melodrama.

"[6] Irit Shamgar, in Ha'ir, celebrated the fact that The Lover "beat the censorship" and was approved for screening, while her colleague Danny Wurt said in his review that the portrayal of the main characters left him unimpressed, though he found the secondary characters of Naim and the grandmother to be more alive and humorous.