Between the Temples

My husband and I, who are Jewish professionals and movie buffs, were really looking forward to this movie. We'd seen the amazing reviews and wanted to support one of the few solidly Jewish themed movies out there. I ignored the sour faces of the few friends who'd already seen it, hoping for the best. Wow, was it awful! We found it weird and borderline insulting. Cinematically, the tone was all over the place; obviously the creators were going for a Harold and Maud vibe, complete with 1968 mania, but it came off as amateurish, while the heavy-handed artsy dinner scene just went on and on! The side characters were sickos or just horrible (though I liked his two moms), and I wanted to dive under my seat when they trotted out the cartoonishly botoxed rabbi's wife. Was that painfully unfunny stereotype really necessary? Supposedly the writers (one of whom was not Jewish) and the director sought out a few "experts" here and there to get the Jewish stuff right, but it doesn't show. Most likely, the experts said, "Umm, that would never happen", and the writers simply ignored them for the sake of tasteless jokes or preposterous plot points. Such a disappointment!