If interest can overcome discomfort, you might like the movie.
What is Jewish humor? First of all, it’s a wonder there is such a genre given the strife of Jewish history. But humor is a Jewish tradition, especially on the screen. Mel Brooks, Woody Allen and the Marx Brothers all come to mind.
Of course, finding humor in strife has been a path to Jewish survival. My challenge is finding humor in Between the Temples, written and directed by Nathan Silver. It’s billed as a comedy and the laughs in the movie theater were undeniable. But there were few laughs from me or my best friend, attorney Jamie Schlaff (who went to the movie with me and panned it afterward).
Between the Temples is the story of Ben Gottlieb (Jason Schwartzman), a cantor at Temple Sinai who had in the past year lost his wife. Though a cantor, Ben is having a crisis in faith. He’s too young to call it a mid-life crisis, but it is a crisis just the same. He even goes into a church to discuss his crisis in faith with a Catholic priest.
But Ben’s music teacher from grade school, Carla O’Connor (Carol Kane), enters his life and the story gets more complicated. Carla is widowed and past middle age. She tends to Ben after he gets into a bar fight (a rather unlikely incident in the life of a cantor). The two reintroduce each other and get reacquainted.
Ben also acts as the instructor for bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah students at the temple. Out of nowhere, Carla appears in the classroom and in the twilight of life (her precise age is not given) wants to have her bat mitzvah. She reveals to Ben that she is half Jewish (her maiden name is Kessler) and that she was raised without religion as her parents were card-carrying communists.
Whereas Ben is questioning his faith, this elderly woman finds lack of religion is a void in her life. And this type of dichotomy is a constant theme of the movie.
Even before Ben meets Carla again, his life is already complicated. His mother is in a same-sex marriage with a Filipino woman who is a Jewish convert. Ben and the two women all belong to the temple, a hyper-tolerant synagogue presided over by Rabbi Bruce (Rober Smigel). And there is also the rabbi’s daughter, Gabby (Madeline Weinstein), whom the rabbi and the two mothers are forcing upon Ben.
Also in the picture is Carla’s son, Nat O’Connor (Matthew Shear), who resents his mother’s relationship with Ben and requests that Ben leave when they are out to dinner with Nat’s family. We see a similar dynamic later in the movie when Carla has dinner with Ben’s family (the night before her bat mitzvah). Just as Ben is made unwelcome when having dinner with Carla’s family, Carla is awkward having dinner with Ben’s family and is forced to leave.
And why is Carla awkward? It isn’t her doing. Ben, a bit inebriated, announces at the dinner table that he is in love with Carla, much to the chagrin of the rabbi and Ben’s stepmother.
More dichotomy. Neither Ben nor Carla are extended warm welcomes when dining with each other’s families. And though Ben’s mother and stepmother expect acceptance of their unconventional love, the stepmother and the rabbi are outraged at Ben’s show of unconventional love.
It’s important to call the circumstances unconventional (as opposed to dysfunctional). Between the Temples succeeds in presenting the tolerant devolve into intolerance.
Is it a good movie? Hard to say. Is it funny? Not really. And it’s not so much enjoyable as it is interesting. We are left wondering whether Ben’s love for Carla is reciprocal. But Ben implies at dinner with his family, when professing his love for Carla, that he has recovered at least a modicum of faith.
The fairest assessment of Between the Temples is that, whereas it’s an interesting movie, the story is by no means comfortable. If interest can overcome discomfort, you might like the movie.
John O’Neill is an Allen Park freelance writer. He contributes frequent essays and reviews to MediaNews Group.