Nathan Silver's new neuroti-com is emotional, humorous and very Jewish
Between the Temples is the new comedy-drama from independent filmmaker Nathan Silver, starring the inimitable Carol Kane and Wes Anderson favourite Jason Schwartzman. But that’s a limited description. Really, the best way to describe this film is that it’s Jewish. Jewish in name, Jewish in nature, Jewish down to its very bones. Specifically, New York Jewish. If you took this film home with you, it’d cook you a brisket, complain about the humidity and insist on watching a Woody Allen boxset. And in the best tradition of Jewish films, Between the Temples is difficult, sad, heartwarming, thought-provoking, weird and extremely funny.
Ben Gottlieb (Schwartzman) is a cantor at a local synagogue in a small town in Upstate New York. Ben is still grieving for his wife, a successful novelist, who died after slipping and falling on an icy pavement over a year earlier. His two mothers – Meira (Caroline Aaron) and Judith (Dolly De Leon) – are increasingly concerned about their son’s descent into depression. Within the first few minutes, Ben tries to commit suicide by laying down on the road in front of an oncoming truck. The moment is played for laughs rather than drama. It’s a Jewish film, after all.
Later that night, whilst drunk in a bar, he bumps into his old grade-school music teacher, Carla Kessler (Kane). She still calls him ‘little Benny Gottlieb’. Carla, an ageing, unreconstructed hippie, decides that she wants an adult bat mitzvah and wants Ben to be her teacher. As they study together, Ben begins to feel that he’s falling in love with Carla. Whether their relationship is entirely healthy is not a question the film explicitly seeks to answer. As Ben’s mother Meira puts it, during an excruciating Shabbat dinner, when Ben’s true feelings are revealed: “You love who you love… I guess.”
As Ben and Carla’s relationship develops, he is introduced to Gabby (Madeline Weinstein), the rabbi’s daughter. Gabby is going through her own emotional turmoil after the failure of her engagement. Ben’s mothers want to set the two of them up, but Gabby represents the past for Ben and therefore his grief. Silver ensures this point is made explicitly, with Ben’s deceased wife Ruth also being played by Weinstein in several brief flashbacks. In one scene, Gabby impersonates Ruth using saved voicemail messages before she and Ben have sex in a car parked near Ruth’s grave. Calling it Freudian would be a serious understatement.
Between the Temples is, at its core, a film that questions the essence of Judaism. Is it a rules-based religion, built on doctrine? Or is it something more flexible, more musical, based on faith, nature and human emotions? Interestingly, the character who espouses the orthodox viewpoint most fervently is one of Ben’s mothers, Judith, a convert to Judaism. The film doesn’t preach, but rather encourages us to consider these questions for ourselves. Between the Temples is a lovely film, but it won’t be for everyone – it’s a Jewish film, after all.
By Barney Pell Scholes
Between the Temples is out now. betweenthetemplesfilm.com