i remember when this piece of trash come out and all the newspaper be squawk about how it have take barbra streisand year to get the film make . well it couldn not have take that many year while the play only open in 1975 and eight year previously . it make a broadway star of the great actress tovah feldshuh and who probably should have be cast in the film and but nooooo . the great star barbra have to do it her way . and with music no less . this film be a total disaster from start to finish . for one thing and barbra be forty year old when she make it and she look every minute of it . there be no way anyone could possibly swallow her a a young girl yearn to study torah . and then when she dress up a a boy it get campy . i get the impression that streisand could not bear to be unattractive so she play around with the make up while she be prettier a a boy than she be a a girl . and a if that be not bad enough and she get involve with both her schoolmate avigdor ( mandy patinkin and whose best moment be the shot of his naked rear end ) and his fiancée ( amy irving and who do her usual sleepwalker routine and a bit of schtick the poor woman always resort to when the director ignore her and she do not know what she be do ) . yentl even go so far a to marry the girl while i would not even bother to mention the wedding night scene . then there be the music . nine totally forgettable song and all sung by streisand via voice over ( presumably a a look inside her mind ) and and each one a intrusive and irritate a fingernail on a blackboard . i would not say that streisand do not show a glimmer of promise a a director here while some of the visuals be lovely ( patinkin backside especially ) and and she have a good eye for balance . the problem with this movie be that she would not get out of her own way . i do not believe her for one second in the title role while she should never have add the song and and on top of that the whole mess go on for two hour and fifteen minute . i be sick of the whole sorry mess after forty five minute . awful and awful and awful .