Minyan

Minyan (2020) was co-written and directed by Eric Steel. It stars Samuel H. Levine as David, a young yeshiva student, who has to come to grips with the fact that he is gay, and the fact that he is not certain that he believes in God.

Sadly, coming out as gay in a traditional family is a problem for many people. The centrality of this problem is reflected in the number of movies about gays coming out. What makes this movie different is the superb acting, and the uncanny rendering of Orthodox Jewish life in Brooklyn in the 1980's.

A minyan is ten men (or ten people) that are required for a full Jewish prayer service. As do people in other religions, Jews pray all the time. But it requires a minyan to bring out the Torah. Part of the plot depends upon the fact that David and his father can make a minyan where they live.

We saw this film as part of Image Out, the excellent Rochester LGBT Film Festival. This isn't a great movie, but I think it's worth seeing. The film has an anemic IMDb rating of 6.7. I thought it was better than that and rated it 8.