Why ‘Between the Temples’ Is A Quirky Jewish Rom-Com You Need to See
(REVIEW) Nathan Silver’s “Between the Temples” begins with an excruciatingly awkward first date with a plastic surgeon and ends with a quiet, intimate bat mitzvah on a hillside. It’s strange and irreverent — and utterly perfect.
It’s the type of movie I love — a movie that’s entirely saturated with religion without necessarily preaching a moral or tenet. “Between the Temples” is Jewish all the way down, and it’s an entertaining reflection on love, loss, family and faith.
Cantor Ben is mourning the death of his wife, and the loss is so great it’s all but destroyed his ability to sing. It’s affected every part of his life: his relationships, his job, his own faith practice. His moms believe that setting him up with a nice young woman will fill the void and get him back on his feet, but of course it isn’t as simple as that.
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An utter failure at leading a Shabbat service leads Ben to a drunken night at a local bar, which leads to a reconnection with his old music teacher. Carla Kessler is eclectic, prone to intense and soft-spoken tangents. She’s a widow like Ben, has fraught relationships with her family, and decides after their chance meeting that she’s going to enroll in Ben’s bat mitzvah class. Thus begins their strange but undeniable connection.
The filmmaking style is somewhat surreal, utilizing jump cuts, tight shots that focus on hyperspecific details and hazy coloring to give the movie an almost dreamlike quality. These qualities provide a delightful artistic flair to the movie that makes it stand out from usual fare.
Its comedy, just in time for Rosh Hashanah, is largely in its attention to detail — both through the filmmaking style and the set decoration. Rabbi Bruce wears a tie with his three daughters framed in it; his car bears the license plate “TKNOLUM,” a reference to the Hebrew phrase “tikkun olam.”
Ben’s journey to rediscover himself and his faith is laced with its own inherent comedy: he visits a Catholic church to ask questions about heaven and hell, about Catholic beliefs.
“I’m curious about … do you have a favorite holiday?” he asks the priest, who’s fiddling anxiously with his rosary beads.
“Maybe Easter,” the priest replies, after a long pause. “Because it’s getting warm.”
In the midst of his growing feelings for Carla, Ben starts up a fling with the rabbi’s daughter Gabby, who seduces him by doing an impression of one of his dead wife’s erotic voicemails.
The comedy, admittedly, is not well-suited for those who easily succumb to secondhand embarrassment. Ben is blundering and abnormal, meek when he should be confrontational and confrontational when he should be meek. His interactions with a similarly outlandish cast of characters are cringeworthy and ridiculous — but hilarious, to the right audience.
It’s with Carla where the depth of emotion and past misery emerges. In an extended monologue, she reveals why she was never able to have a bat mitzvah before — a monologue which she makes Ben repeat back to her, solidifying their bond with a fierce seal. It’s revealed too that her son, a devout atheist, doesn’t like her and ridicules her for everything, including her desire for a bat mitzvah. Ben, despite his initial defiance, becomes a staunch defender of her desire to connect further with Judaism.
Ben and Carla’s feelings develop despite rocky patches as they have deep talks, share meals, do mushrooms and become each others’ support systems. The relationship, as yet unestablished, comes to a head during a Shabbat dinner shared with the rabbi’s family the day before Carla’s bat mitzvah — which they’ve moved up several months, at Carla’s request.
Ben at last confesses his feelings, to the horror of almost everyone at the table. That doesn’t stop him from getting the girl, nor does it stop the girl from getting her long-awaited bat mitzvah — though both are plenty unconventional.
It’s so unconventional it’s refreshing, in fact, as is the rest of the movie. Ben and Carla are an odd but magnetic pair, their chemistry undeniable. There’s something so great about a movie that has great characters first and foremost, because anything that happens just allows the audience to get that much closer to them.
The character work is crucial, of course, in a movie about struggling with personal religious belief. Perhaps layered behind absurd comedy, the weight of a loss of faith is entirely sincere. Ben isn’t able to find his way back on his own, but it’s through his defense and support of Carla that he realizes just how important Judaism is to him, too.
Presented as an offbeat rom-com, “Between the Temples” contains a depth of feeling and personal reflection that’s admirable. It’s a must-see for many reasons, and only one of them is its central romance. It’s also a hilarious misadventure, a reflection on life and relationships and the beautiful journey two people take to rediscovering faith.
Jillian Cheney is Religion Unplugged’s Senior Culture Correspondent. She writes about film, TV, music, art, books and more. Find her on Twitter @_jilliancheney.