Writer/director Nathan Silver is an independent filmmaker who has made eight films before the film we’re going to talk about today, Between the Temples. I had never heard of him nor seen any of those films, so he’s completely new to me. I had enjoyed the trailer for this film, and I knew it was a moderate hit at Sundance and the Tribeca Film Festival this year, so I was excited to check this out. Unfortunately, a charming story is undone by filmmaking choices that absolutely drove me insane.

Ben Gottlieb (Jason Schwartzman) is a depressed cantor at a temple in Upstate New York. His wife died a year ago and he’s been living with his two overbearing mothers (Caroline Aaron and Dolly de Leon) while he mopes around, without any enthusiasm for moving his life forward. He reconnects with Carla (Carol Kane), who was his childhood music teacher. She’s got a zest for life most women half her age don’t. She’s exuberant, she’s saucy, she’s energetic. She tells him she never had a bat mitzvah, and has always regretted this, and she becomes his latest student. An unlikely friendship blossoms between these two people who could not have less in common.

The script and the cast is never the problem here. Ben may be a bit obnoxious, but you get why he is the way he is. And this character is bound to speak to viewers who have spent their lives chasing the dreams of their parents. And Ben’s mommy issues feel like the focal point of his character, and I wonder if that’s been done in enough films to feel like a stereotype to Jewish viewers. It brought to mind Ari Aster’s Beau is Afraid from last year, and how the two are thematically very similar. While Beau was terrified of everything that happened around him, Ben has just about given up in every aspect of his life, and the dichotomy between these two is fascinating. Unfortunately, neither film fully worked for me.

Carol Kane is such a magnetic screen presence and has such a great time with an all-too-rare shot at a role this close to the top of the call sheet. The last time I remember seeing her is on Tina Fey’s Netflix series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, where she consistently turned in hilarious, spectacular work and was never recognized properly for it, The chemistry between Kane and Schwartzman is winning from the start, and even if this film’s script is meandering and unfocused throughout, the two of them are strong enough to almost save the day.

We also have a winning supporting cast here. Caroline Aaron is a great character actress who always puts in good work, and Dolly de Leon is on something of a roll since her turn in 2022’s Palme d’Or winning Triangle of Sadness. Both have some great moments here. Robert Smigel and Madeline Weinstein also have some good scenes as the temple’s rabbi and his daughter, who Ben’s mothers are trying to set him up with. 

As a non-Jewish viewer, I am curious to how this film handles the Jewish experience. While there undoubtedly has to be a lot of truth here, it feels like we delve into stereotype more often than not. There are a few moments involving Carla’s staunch atheist son having a problem with her focusing on religion, and I didn’t particularly enjoy those moments. Choosing to paint the atheist as the uptight jerk feels like a curious choice, as every atheist I’ve ever known has never shouted at anyone about why they shouldn’t believe in any given thing.

A few things stood out and bugged me pretty consistently here. They shouldn’t be make-or-break elements, but these choices are so bizarre, they are so off-putting they continued to take me out of the story. Cinematographer Sean Price Williams shot this, and he’s served as cinematographer on the Safdie Brothers movies. The choice to film this on 16mm film stock provides a graininess to the look of the film, which is fine. But there’s like a cinéma vérité look to the film involving lots of handheld cameras and many, many dramatic, extreme closeups that I can only imagine are meant to make the viewer uncomfortable. And if that was the intent, it worked, because I felt like I had to look away from the screen during certain points of this film, because it was just so unpleasant to look at. And I get that this is a conscious choice, but it still annoyed the hell out of me.

Overall, Between the Temples is a nice enough character study that overstays its welcome a bit. If we lost maybe 15-20 minutes, I think we could have something here. With the exception of Carol Kane’s character, I found everyone here a bit annoying, but I do appreciate the journey these characters went on over the course of the film. Unfortunately, some baffling filmmaking choices constantly put me as a viewer at a disadvantage, and I found this experience a bit frustrating as a result. If you’re interested in this film, this is a rare case where I’d suggest waiting to watch it at home as a streaming option. I saw it in a mostly full house the other day, and the film isn’t funny enough to enjoy with an audience, and I suspect other moviegoers felt just as uncomfortable as I did with the whole thing.