REVIEW. "Between the Temples" Gets Inside Your Heart.

"Let's have a party."

In a slow summer that has offered little cinematic fare to motivate me to get out of the house and into a theater, I'm skeptical that a party is what I'm after. But that seems to be the message Cantor Ben Gottlieb (Jason Schwartzman) tries to sell to his prepubescent Bar and Bat Mitzvah students. After a year of dedicated study and an intense rite-of- passage ceremony, they'll get a party, he tells them, hoping the promise of a blowout celebration (their parents are booking DJ's and caterers at least a year in advance) will provide the incentive necessary to get them through learning the Hebrew language, law, and the music that are part of the ritual.

But, no matter how hard he tries to sell the post-Mitzvah party,  Ben is hardly up for any kind of festivity.  You see, his wife has died.  One year (plus) after a freak accident - she slipped on an icy path one cold, wintry night while taking a walk and died of a brain bleed - Ben still listens to the many sexy, suggestive voicemail message she left him. In fact, he's even bought extra storage so he can keep every word from her on his cell. Her last slurry-voiced words were sent just before the fatal fall (she was a successful writer who struggled with alcoholism), and Ben plays it over and over, seemingly unable - or unwilling - to understand the "why" behind her unexpected and premature death.

Schwartzman's sad sack Ben could have been lifted out a Woody Allen movie c1985: He's moved back home with his mother Meira (Caroline Aaron) and her wife Judith (Dolly de Leon), put his house up for sale and goes through the motions at temple.

At his lowest point, realizing he is unable to cantor a shabbat service, Ben runs out of the temple and heads for the nearest highway, hoping an oncoming car or truck will put him out of his misery. As the lights of an oncoming semi flash in front of him, he closes his eyes and waits for death, only to hear the tires screech. The driver picks him up (literally) and drops him off at a local bar where Ben has too many mud slides and winds up getting punched by a local Neanderthal.

Enter Carla O'Connor (Carol Kane), a retired music teacher who, it turns out, was Ben's middle school teacher when he was studying for his Bar Mitzvah. She sees Ben's pain and also the impossibly confining emotional wall he's build around himself. Carla remembers a different Ben: a 13-year old with a beautiful voice whose eyes were filled with wonder toward a life filled with promise. What happened to that delightfully curious young man, she wonders, as she and Ben watch an old VHS tape of his Bar Mitzvah.

Hmmm. What to do?

Carla, who is a bit adrift herself after what appears to be a forced retirement, decides that she wants to have the Bat Mitzvah her Jewish parents wouldn't allow. She's a "red diaper" baby, Ben learns, and her parents' political views denied her participation in a rite of passage she yearned for. Reluctantly, Ben decides to help her prepare for her own Bat Mitzvah, and the movie takes off (sort of) from there.

Director Nathan Silver, who co-write the screenplay with C. Mason Wells, doesn't leave many Jewish stereotypes out developing the remaining narrative, though he does more teasing than skewering of mensch culture. There's Ben's pushy, sometimes overbearing birth mother Meira, her newly converted real-estate agent wife Judith, who is more rigid and controlling in her views of Judaism and what is appropriate for Ben than Meira, Rabbi Bruce (Robert Smigel), whose attempts to bring Ben back from his grieving funk are earnest, if fumbling and clueless, and Gabby (Madeline Weinstein), Rabbi Bruce's sexually aggressive daughter who returns home after being unceremoniously dumped at the altar.

You get the picture here. Everything is a set up for Ben and Gabby to connect in commiseration of their defunct love lives, and - for a moment - they do. But it's Carol Kane's radiant Carla who captures Ben's heart and helps him break out of his post-mortem funk. If you're old enough, you may remember Kane from her Oscar-nominated performance in Hester Street back in 1975, or her Emmy Award-winning turns (she won two Emmys) as Simka, immigrant wife to Andy Kaufman's now iconic Latka Gravas on the TV series, Taxi.

Kane's signature big eyes and Betty Boop voice serve her well here, as they have both aged with grace and a wistful kind of wisdom. Carla has her own tale of disappointment but, unlike Ben, she is forever hopeful, constantly trying to push him beyond his comfort zone so that he can get out of his head and see the world.

In this way, Silver and Wells' movie title has multiple meanings: Ben is not only caught between the tradition of the temple and Carla's unusual Bat Mitzvah request, he is struggling with his own sense of right and wrong, of what he's learned versus what he feels. It's a coming of age at many levels or, as New York Times movie critic Manohla Dargis put it, a "coming of middle age" rather than a mid-life crisis.

Jason Schwartzman, whose expressive face alone is worth the price of admission, complements Kane's gentle nudging and learns to find his own voice, literally and lovingly. With a movie resume that is more quirky than conventional, Schwartzman reveals the many layers of Ben's grief alongside the depths of his longing to find a path in life that brings him joy. Of course, Ben's voice returns in time for Carla's Bat Mitzvah ceremony but, by then, other experiences and situations have occurred that make its reappearance poignant and genuine.

Nathan Silver, an independent filmmaker known for making small movies with intimate storylines often using friends and family as cast members, expands his universe here a bit, thanks, in part, to Schwartzman and Kane's astute and nuanced performances, which raise questions about how we live our lives and with whom. Love isn't just not having to say you're sorry, but rather, it's about encouraging, celebrating and embracing all those things about your partner that make them happy and fulfilled, a kind of mutual invigoration.

Between the Temples is not a blockbuster summer film that will make millions of dollars at the box office or be an awards season favorite, although Kane's performance is definitely worthy of a supporting actor nom. Her Carla is a beautiful mix of aging radiance and hard-won wisdom. She's experienced life but isn't willing to succumb to its disappointments. When she and Ben stumble upon each other, they begin a sweet, affectionate pax de deux that is both moving and funny.

I've tried to stay away from lame Jewish jokes and references in this review, as the movie handles all the mannerisms of Jewishness from schmuck to mensch and beyond, with great restraint. Silver never goes over the edge, saving the film from becoming what could have been a mundane and forgettable parody. Instead, we get a rich and unexpected love story, one that astutely combines pathos with passion, understated wisdom with a kind of existential cynicism that works as the story unfolds. This is one May-September romance that doesn't lapse into cliches or banal takeaways.

But then I can't resist sharing the one line that made me laugh out loud. As a forlorn Ben searches for some type of meaning in life, he wanders into a Catholic church and strikes up a conversation with the parish priest. Ben queries the existence of a heaven and/or a hell, to which the clergyman responds, "If there is a hell, there must be a heaven." Ben ponders the padre's certain belief a moment, then responds, "In Judaism,  there is no heaven or hell. Just Upstate NY." 

Amen. 

Let's have a party. 

PS If you're inclined to wait to see Between the Temples at home, it will likely stream on Netflix in the near future. Watch for it. It's more than worth the time investment, and it just might leave you with a smile and a song in your heart.