Between the Temples

Review by Mark Woodring

Wasn’t sure about this one going in, but the cast is excellent and the idea of a crisis of faith is always ripe for dramatic exploration.

**NOTE: this post may be updated with audio once we actually have the chance to talk about it. Until then, you can read Mark’s review below. Remember, though, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**

Between the Temples - Review
Between the Temples (Sony)

 

111 Minutes, Rated R
Written by Nathan Silver and C. Mason Wells
Directed by Nathan Silver

 

Synopsis:

A cantor in a crisis of faith finds his world turned upside down when his grade school music teacher re-enters his life as his new adult Bat Mitzvah student.

Between the Temples feels like it would be a very easy adaptation to the stage. There’s nothing big or grandiose about the settings and story, which director Nathan Silver wisely lets linger in the moments as Carol Kane’s Carla (herself a widow) and her zest for life, slowly but unflappably draws Jason Schwartzman’s Ben (recently widowed) back into the land of the living, even as he half-heartedly resists the process.

In grieving his late wife, Ben has lost the ability to sing, which is quite a problem, as his duties as Cantor of his Synagogue consist mostly of that.

After a drunken bar fight — okay, Ben gets punched once and goes down — he’s rescued by Carla, who is in the bar for karaoke. Once they realize they were once teacher and student, things get… weird.

“Weird” may be a stretch, but it’s not completely off the mark. Carla shows up to Ben’s bat/bar mitzvah class and declares that she wants the bat mitzvah she never got, as her parents were communist Jews and her husband was Protestant. And she wants Ben to teach her.

What follows is a fairly predictable — to a point, which we’ll get to — evolution of their relationship. Carla, unclear on what kind of behavior is and isn’t acceptable for a Jew, much less a Cantor, forces Ben to reevaluate his behaviors, along with some of his beliefs, as she continues to press forward with her preparations.

Oh, and there’s hallucinogenic tea… so there’s that.

There’s a brilliant subplot here, as well, as both Ben’s mothers, played by Caroline Aaron and Dolly De Leon (who is seemingly having a moment), are trying to set him up with the Rabbi’s daughter, played by Madeline Weinstein. She has her own issues, having been left at the alter the year prior. She also develops a somewhat unhealthy interest in the voicemails Ben keeps from his late wife, which are of an… intimate nature.

But the film takes a turn that one wouldn’t normally expect from Hollywood, and I’m not sure how I feel about it from a narrative standpoint. I would have gone another way, but I don’t get paid to write Hollywood films, do i?

The performances here are great, with Carole Kane doing the actual heavy lifting, despite Carol’s otherwise light demeanor. Jason Schwartzman is no long the precocious little boy from Rushmore, and the years weigh heavy on him as he perfectly channels Ben’s apathy and despair, as well as his eventual rebirth of sorts.

Between the Temples is a genuinely moving look at love, grief, moving on, and how those things can interact in ways you might not expect.

But life has been doing the unexpected to humanity since the dawn of time, hasn’t it?

Between the Temples hits theaters August 23 and stars Jason Schwartzman, Carol Kane, Dolly De Leon, Caroline Aaron, Robert Smigel, Madeline Weinstein, Matthew Shear, and Lindsay Burdge.

And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.

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