Ben Gottlieb – the poignantly soulful hero of the soulful, delightfully jarring Between the Temples – is a large number. Wants a haircut and shave; may do with extra acceptable garments. There are issues at work. He additionally lives in his household’s basement, that much-mocked refuge of the everlasting man-child and supreme loser. But, as a result of director Nathan Silver appreciates the ironies in life and likes to set the sting of his comedy, Ben lives with each his mom and stepmother. He lives, in different phrases, in his moms basement.
Ben – the right Jason Schwartzman – is a tragic sack, however he is additionally simply plain unhappy, and for an excellent, painful motive. His spouse had not too long ago died, leaving him bereft and more and more with out a clear sense of self or objective. He appears to have misplaced his bearings, however he is additionally misplaced his singing voice, which proves an issue contemplating he is a cantor at a neighborhood synagogue. He nonetheless teaches there, working in a cramped, chaotic classroom the place he helps girls and boys put together for his or her bar and bat mitzvahs, the normal Jewish coming-of-age ceremonies that formally herald the transition from childhood to maturity.
Set within the current in a village in upstate New York, this coming-of-age story follows Ben throughout an eventful interval in his life that takes a flip after he runs into his former elementary faculty music trainer faculty, Carla Kessler (Carol Kane, divine). They meet once more at a bar, the place she helps a nervous, deflated Ben, a kindness that takes an surprising flip when she exhibits up on the synagogue. Carla needs to take his class, explaining that she has by no means had a bat mitzvah. Ben is reluctant as a result of, properly, she’s not a child, however after consulting along with his boss, Rabbi Bruce (Robert Smigel), Ben relents. A friendship blossoms, and maybe one thing deeper, too, and the movie takes on its blissfully uncommon rhythm.
Silver, who co-wrote the movie with C. Mason Wells, introduces Ben with out preamble, instantly bringing you right into a dialog that started earlier than the movie. Ben and his moms, Meira and Judith (a well-synchronized Caroline Aaron and Dolly de Leon), are within the household’s eating room having an apparently severe heart-to-heart dialog. Judith says they assume he “ought to begin seeing a health care provider,” a suggestion Ben says he is up for. Because the digital camera zooms out, Ben continues speaking solely to be interrupted by the doorbell. The mothers bounce and an exquisite physician walks in and nearly instantly begins selecting on Ben, a change that all of the sudden offers new which means to the recommendation the mothers simply gave.
