Movie Review: Between the Temples

3.5 stars out of 5

“A film by Nathan Silver.” That’s what the ads say. Who gives a crap?!? Who the hell is Nathan Silver? I looked him up, I still don’t know. Don’t you have to earn a credit like that? You know, on LinkedIn, I recently saw a current employee of the company where I worked at for a long time. And the person’s title was Associate Senior Editor. Well, which is it? Associate editor, or senior editor? You can’t be in-between! It’s title inflation and it can only lead to trouble, mark my words!!

I digress.

This is a cute little film, with some heavier content in it. (Suicidal ideation is heavy, yes? OK then.) A somewhat puffy Jason Schwartzman is the cantor at a suburban synagogue. (For you goys, that means he sings during the service.) He is no longer married and he is unhappy, and messing up at work. Jason’s two moms (come on Jack, don’t do a parenthetical here, it’s totally normal that he has two moms!) want him to be happy. The rabbi is cutting him a lot of slack. The rabbi is Robert Smigel, a.k.a. Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, a.k.a. Saturday TV Funhouse, a.k.a. every funny thing ever, I don’t know if they said “hey let’s ask Robert Smigel to play the role” or if he auditioned and won the part, but he is totally believable as a rabbi and I was very glad to see him.

Two women enter Jason’s life. Most prominently is Carol Kane, because her photo is on the poster, not far from Nathan Silver’s name. She’s older but wants a bat mitzvah, and wants Jason to instruct her! But that’s crazy, bat mitzvahs and Trix are for kids! Hey, it’s a cute little movie, what can I tell you, so these things happen. She is a free spirit and Jason is not!

There is also the rabbi’s daughter (Madeline Weinstein). Hey, she’s cute, she’s smart, she’s funny, we like her! She’d be a good match for Jason! What a nice couple you two make!

There is comedic family yelling and the movie is lightly comic, very lightly, just a bit of heavier stuff. I could’ve done without the pun title, but maybe that wasn’t Nathan Silver’s decision. An afternoon audience of older Jews at the Red Bank cinema seemed to enjoy the movie, and I did too. I also enjoyed being one of the younger Jews in the audience, which doesn’t happen much anymore.