This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn’t exist.
No not bar mitzvah, Andy Goldfarb. For the non Jewish people reading, a bat mitzvah is like a bar mitzvah, except it is the girl’s rite of passage from girl to woman, reading the Torah then having a giant party for all their friends. And who better to lead us into the fraught high drama of a middle school party than America’s preeminent Jewish royalty, the Sandler family.
Adam Sandler happily splits the Netflix money with his whole family instead of his friends this time. He plays Danny Friedman, father and very much the 2nd fiddle to his 13 year old daughter Stacy (Sunny Sandler), the star of this film. Stacy’s bat mitzvah is coming up this year, as well as the bat mitzvah for her bff Lydia (Samantha Lorraine). Both have been planning for their big days together, working on the party planning well before the schoolyear even starts. But for 13 year olds, that’s a minefield of problems to deal with, including invites from the popular kids in school, and maybe most importantly, superhunk of junior high Andy Goldfarb (Dylan Hoffman), the crush of every girl in junior high, especially Stacy.
You’re So Not Invited continues the excellent, modern string of stories of junior high kids. Unlike the much more somber Close and Eighth Grade, My Bat Mitzvah has some of the horrors of those films, but opts for a lighter, Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret touch complete with talks with God. The awkward scenes play less like a horror movie and more a part of a stand up’s story, like making out inside of temple or a courageous jump off a cliff punchlined by heavy flow tampons. The movie’s at its best with its cultural specificity jokes – it is about rich girls’ Bat Mitzvahs after all. Each new bat mitzvah brings us new older family members to talk to, or great running jokes like Stacy’s older sister Ronnie (Sadie Sandler) in a will they won’t they with older brothers at the party. Sarah Sherman is the latest SNL cast member to help Sandler out, hilariously playing a new age rabbi ready to kick it with the kids and show off her rizz/bars. Maybe best though, other than the incredibly named DJ Schmuley, is Adam Sandler plays it straight until he gets into a shouting match with his real life & fictional daughter, throwing Jewish haymakers at each other for the comedic highlight of the movie.
The title though is the thing that keeps the movie grounded, and exciting. I don’t know if this is Adam Sandler’s sick joke, but he portrays his daughter like an insufferable self absorbed brat. Never underestimate the power of a vengeful hurt teenager. The movie’s pretty smart about how simple misunderstandings can really do harm, especially when you’re 13. By no fault of her own, Lydia ends up in the crosshairs of Stacy, convinced there’s something nefarious afoot. Games of telephone and petty grievances build, causing real harm to what seemed like a rock solid friendship. Despite the generally light tone, the fraying relationship between Stacy and Lydia is taken seriously by the movie, and hurts more and more as the one upmanship by the former friends grows more and more brazen and hurtful. You’re So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah reminds me how lucky I was to be a boy during these years, as the movie shows the thin emotional ice 8th grade girls perpetually live in during those wild early teen years.
I do hope we see more of the Sandler clan. Sunny and Sadie Sandler are a lot of fun, inheriting their dad’s charm and self-deprecating sense of humor. I hope Netflix has enough stored away, that’s a lot of Sandlers to pay now. Unrelated, but weird move here Adam, casting your real wife as the mother of Lydia while your movie wife is Idina Menzel. What’s that about?