Between the Temples

Between the Temples

Between the Temples

Between the Temples

Ben Gottlieb (Jason Schwartzman) is a socially awkward cantor. He runs out of his synagogue and tries to kill himself. Of course, he awkwardly fails and goes to a bar. He doesn't know what to order and starts drinking mudslides. He gets ridiculed by a bully and knocked out. His childhood teacher Carla Kessler (Carol Kane) comes to his aid. Later, she wants his help with her bat mitzvah. Her father was Jewish but she never was. This is a lot of quirky without much actual laughs. Schwartzman is uncomfortable and weird. The second-hand embarrassment is extremely high in this one. I do love her family restaurant outing. His one crazy move during his family dinner is truly crazy. It is outlandishly crazy as a man without any social skills. The meat and cheese scene could have been funny, but the closeup of Schwartzman eating is too gross. This movie pushes awkward comedy too far and the leads manage to save this with their charms.

My husband and I, who are Jewish professionals and movie buffs, were really looking forward to this movie. We'd seen the amazing reviews and wanted to support one of the few solidly Jewish themed movies out there. I ignored the sour faces of the few friends who'd already seen it, hoping for the best. Wow, was it awful! We found it weird and borderline insulting. Cinematically, the tone was all over the place; obviously the creators were going for a Harold and Maud vibe, complete with 1968 mania, but it came off as amateurish, while the heavy-handed artsy dinner scene just went on and on! The side characters were sickos or just horrible (though I liked his two moms), and I wanted to dive under my seat when they trotted out the cartoonishly botoxed rabbi's wife. Was that painfully unfunny stereotype really necessary? Supposedly the writers (one of whom was not Jewish) and the director sought out a few "experts" here and there to get the Jewish stuff right, but it doesn't show. Most likely, the experts said, "Umm, that would never happen", and the writers simply ignored them for the sake of tasteless jokes or preposterous plot points. Such a disappointment!

Between the Temples in s an exercise in " randomness" without much thought as to how the scenes fit together. Really? Is this the best the editing could do? Even the writing is very uneven, as though more than one writer threw out different ideas and then clipped them together. Some of the scenes were not consistent with the character's personality but it seems as though the anything goes! I really wanted to like this movie but it did not pick up traction and I was surprised at how little humor there was. I'm not sure how long it took to make this film but it was disappointing! So disappointing! Carol King was terrific !

Nathan Silver's "Between the Temples" is widely acclaimed by critics. Your experience may vary. Mine did. Following the accidental death of his wife, Ben (Jason Schwartzman - "Asteroid City" and other Wes Anderson projects) is bereft. Although he works as the cantor for a local synagogue, he is unable to sing. After his latest failed attempt during services, Ben rushes out of the synagogue. He lies down in the middle of the road to end it all but instead gets a lift from the truck driver to a nearby bar. He gets drunk. In a related matter, he gets punched in the face. In the process, he becomes reacquainted with his childhood music teacher, Carla (a fantastic Carol Kane). Eventually, Ben begins to tutor the 70ish Carla for the bat mitzvah denied her by her Russian Communist parents. Silver uses this story, which begins with tremendous potential, to explore the themes of many of his previous films, particularly the paralyzing consequences of anxiety and fear and why people fall in love or even put up with each other. At the same time, he offers a gentle critique of Jewish culture that features an explosive Shabbat dinner, mothers (Ben has two) fixated on immediately finding him a nice Jewish girl and a rabbi who's willing to negotiate and haggle about everything. Robert Smigel as the rabbi and Madeline Weinstein as Gabby, the rabbi's daughter and very available Jewish girl, offer strong performances. The oddball relationship between Ben and Carla is mesmerizing. It's sweet, kind, confusing, funny, quirky and completely charming. Schwartzman and Kane's performances are well worth the price of admission. What sunk this film - and it's a sinking of Titanic proportions in my view - is the muddled tone. On the one hand, there's a pervasive sweetness and a kindness in the face of everyone's frailties that's quite endearing. This sweetness encourages, even compels, the moviegoer to really invest in what's happening with these characters. So it's jarring to have slapstick scenes injected into the story along with diversions into broad, bawdy, absurdist comedy that shove us away from the feelings being so carefully nurtured. At times, I felt manipulated by these jolting shifts in tone and perspective. For me, this tonal inconsistency was a deal-breaker. Even the title of this film can't seem to make up its mind. Is the film to be an assessment of Jewish culture? Is it to be a treatise on behavioral neuropsychology? Or is it just trying to be too clever for its own good? "Between the Temples" is a step forward from Silver's very low-budget previous films, many of which starred his mother. It's thoughtful, sometimes insightful and occasionally hilarious. Unfortunately, it's a film that never decides whether it wants to be sweet and earnest or "Harold and Maude." I left the theater feeling confused by an unfocused story (and an incomprehensible conclusion) that felt more lazy than layered.

Between the Temples is a 2024 "comedy" directed by Nathan Silver. "Comedy" in quotations because this is really not a 'haha' comedy life American audiences are used to, but a drama with a universal lens of levity and funny *life* moments. There really aren't many examples of this genre in western media, but in many eastern movies and TV shows, this would easily slot into the genre called "Slice of Life". There are so few that the only one that I can think of off the top of my head is the masterpiece novel Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. Undoubtably, this was made with much love and many winks for Jewish audiences, as the punctuated laughter throughout my viewing showed, but underneath that is a very pure, human, down to earth story about the healing power of human connection. For starters, the dialogue and especially the layered dialogue performances by all the characters throughout the film are so real, it's uncanny at times. We can't help at laugh and cringe at awkward dinner scenes that are so like the ones many of us have been apart of in our lives. The script is tight, and the story flows beautifully, although it might not be clear until the end where the story is going. This is something that is just going to be inherent to the genre because, like life, it's not clear what the story arc is until it's over. The film is also very timeless, as it's based around a small community and makes very infrequent use of technology or modern plot devices. It could as easily have been made in 1980 as in 2024. I have some gripes about the photography of the film, but its undeniable that there is a cozy and timeless feel to the whole movie. Solid acting jobs all around by the entire cast. I'm not sure that anyone particularly stood out beyond the great dialogue writing, but everyone played their part well. In this absolutely charming, down to earth story about human connection, the most stunning moments are often the most mundane -- just moments when the two leads are in on room together, riffing back and forth. As you can tell, I'm exceptionally charmed by this film, but there are a couple negative things I can note. For one, the choice to use a very dated 90s digital photography setup didn't do much for me. The picture was very noisy, and I'm not sure that any of the film's great qualities would be taken away if a modern 2024 digital photography setup was used. Another thing is that the film is very Jew-centric and therefore non Jewish audiences will inevitably miss a lot of jokes. I knew there were quite a few camera gags that I didn't understand, but the Jewish audience members were howling at. Nonetheless, I still think the underlying film is great. A few genre-specific points as well: it's not quite clear for much of the film as to where the film is going, or even how long the timeline of the film is. Silver does a decent job at re-grounding the audience periodically as to what is happening when, but it can still be a bit confusing due to the way the film is edited. The film purports to be over the course of 3ish weeks, but it could easily have been over the course of a few months. A minor gripe, but still. As the gap between critical acclaim for this film and audience despair widens, I have to say that I think this is a case of the media not being to the western audience's tastes. That's totally understandable, so if a cozy and somewhat funny human interest story appeals to you, then please please please give Between the Temples a watch!

I cannot in good conscience give this dumpster fire of a movie a balanced review. It does not deserve one. Nor does it deserve even a 1-star rating-more like 10💩. Instead, I'm offering a public service announcement, a warning to anyone contemplating seeing it. Please do not. Trust me on this; you will lose the will to live. My wife and I rarely go out to see movies anymore and prefer to watch them on our own time in the comfort of our home through the multiple streaming services we subscribe to, just like many people do. But given the three-day Labor Day weekend we thought it might be time to reacquaint ourselves with what a theatre experience is like today. My wife had read a positive review of this train wreck of a movie in a national publication; but whoever wrote that should be ashamed of himself and have his computer confiscated. We paid $27 for two tickets, which is two months of Netflix or HBO. Plus we were tied to a 6:40 pm start time and had to endure 45 minutes of commercials and previews. So much for a pleasant theatre experience. But in the end, the previews were the least painful part of the evening. (Actually, the seats were comfortable, though not any better than home.) Oh, the movie. We left after a little more than an hour, even though I was ready to leave 15 minutes into this horror show. My wife finally had had enough and literally felt nauseated from the appalling camera work, the totally obnoxious characters, the lack of any writing or directing standards, and the utter assault on one's intelligence. Here's a basic rule: it's possible to make a comedy on almost any subject, and make fun of almost anything, but the result must be viewer laughter. While we were in the theatre, with ~100 other suffering souls, no one laughed. This movie was made as if the producers had never seen a movie before, or knew how to operate a camera. I'd guess that even a random chimpanzee in captivity could write a better script and get his fellow zoo residents to collaborate on a more watchable film with nothing more than old banana peels and their own excrement. If this PSA keeps just one person from seeing it, then the wasted time I spent and the $27 that went down the drain were not in vain.

I was not Bat Mitzvahed, but had the opportunity to learn to read Torah at the age of 50. As soon as I saw a review of this film, I knew that I had to see it. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and was moved on a very personal level. The performances were superb, the script was sharp and funny. Most of the details were spot-on, many of them recalling my own and my family's experiences. That said, I can understand why viewers who are less familiar with Jewish ritual and culture might be left cold by the film. Coming to Torah later in life, I, of course, related strongly to Carla's character. The one glaring flaw I felt was the absence of a Torah scroll in film. Reading from the scroll, copied and produced exactly as it had been for milennia, was an overwhelming part of the experience for me. It gave me a connection to ritual and history that I'd never experienced before.