If we were playing word association with the movie Between the Temples, “quirky” or “indie” would be near the top of the list. Smaller indie comedies die on the quirk hill often, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Between the Temples is by no means the worst of the genre, but it’s not much closer to the best either. Maybe take your rabbi’s grandmother to see it? You can explain all the jokes to them.
The indie character in crisis here is Ben Gottlieb (Jason Schwartzman). After a horrible emotional blow, cantor Ben can no longer sing during synagogue, and is forced to move back in with his moms (Meira and Judith, wonderfully played by Caroline Aaron and Dolly De Leon). After one drunken night out, Ben’s taken home by his former music teacher Carla O’Connor (Carol Kane). Ben becomes enamored with Carol, who is seeking to have the bat mitzvah she never had, while the cantor also has a forced suitor from moms in the form of Rabbi Bruce’s (Robert Smigel) daughter Gabby (Madeline Weinstein) also in the middle of a life crisis herself.
In general, the great comedies of the movie world find ubiquity through specificity, like My Big Fat Greek Wedding. However, Between the Temples is maybe the first movie I’ve seen where there’s too much specificity. We’re firmly in the Jewish communities of upstate New York from minute one. Not only do we never leave this place, but we dive deeper and deeper into it, and all the character’s issues that arise from a place like this. The problems, you know, those things that usually drive a movie are things like this: prepping for an 80 year old’s bat mitzvah. Dealing with invasive mothering by having them set up dates for you without asking. Attraction to a girl who is aroused by your dead wife’s novel. And not being able to sing in church during a hard time in your life. There might be some ubiquity here and there, but on the whole, this movie completely filters through Westchester lens, meaning these problems are unmoored from the rest of the world’s issues. Grant it, there’s a deep funny irony to many of the fights, leading up to one of the more deliciously uncomfortable family dinners in recent memory. But you have to meet Between the Temples on its terms, while it is not extending it’s hand in a similar way to the audience.
If there’s any connection being formed, it’s through Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane. Schwartzman is doing a Wes Anderson bit inside another director’s movie, something he can do in his sleep by now. He’s neurotic and weird as ever, really bringing his A game when the movie needs it like at that big climactic dinner. But if there’s one lasting memory I hope people have of Between the Temples, it’s that Carol Kane is more than just a lady with a funny voice. She’s doing something really great here, finding an equally strange character to Schwartzman, but in an opposite, more empathetic way. Around all these invasive irritating Gottliebs, Kane’s Carla is a wonderful breath of sweet air, living every minute of life like it’s her last, with a giggle and a smile.
I wonder how the upstate New Yorkers are going to feel about Between the Temples. It’s so specific to the people up there that are going to connect with this movie instantly, but maybe moreso for the worse than the better. And when all that Mean Girls like fighting is happening, let’s let Carol Kane either go back to Kimmy Schmidt’s building, or back to the forest with Billy Crystal, waiting to magically cure people who are only a little dead.