{"id":26354,"date":"2017-10-20T03:59:34","date_gmt":"2017-10-20T10:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=26354"},"modified":"2017-10-19T23:18:45","modified_gmt":"2017-10-20T06:18:45","slug":"more-than-just-a-rom-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2017\/10\/20\/more-than-just-a-rom-com\/","title":{"rendered":"More than just a rom-com"},"content":{"rendered":"

Noa Koler in The Wedding Plan<\/em>, which screens Nov. 9 at Fifth Avenue Cinemas. (photo from Roadside Attractions)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The grin-inducing trailer for The Wedding Plan<\/em> nonetheless suggests one question \u2013 did Israeli filmmaker Rama Burshtein sell out?<\/p>\n

The Orthodox writer-director\u2019s acclaimed debut, Fill the Void<\/em>, was an uncompromising story of a young Orthodox woman grappling with her parents\u2019 and community\u2019s expectations regarding her prospective husband. In contrast, The Wedding Plan<\/em>, while also being chuppah-bound, appears from the trailer to be a romantic comedy designed to entertain.<\/p>\n

In fact, The Wedding Plan<\/em> is a high-stakes emotional journey about an observant woman in her 30s who\u2019s so unhappy that she resolves to wed on the last night of Chanukah \u2013 with no groom in sight \u2013 after her fianc\u00e9 breaks up with her mere weeks before their appointed date. Michal\u2019s family and friends counsel against such a bold, risky and potentially devastating strategy, but she remains undeterred.<\/p>\n

The film contains plenty of witty one-liners but, as the Israeli trailer conveyed, it\u2019s not a disposable sitcom. Burshtein has assuredly not sold out. She simply trusted her U.S. distributor\u2019s marketing strategy, even if some ticket-buyers are misled.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think you\u2019re going to see a romantic comedy and you get something more, that\u2019s good,\u201d said Burshtein. \u201cYou get something stronger and that\u2019s OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wedding Plan<\/em> screens on Nov. 9, 4 p.m., at Fifth Avenue Cinemas as part of this year\u2019s Vancouver Jewish Film Festival.<\/p>\n

Both of Burshtein\u2019s films raise a curtain on the lives of Orthodox women, in part through honest conversations they have among themselves when men aren\u2019t around. The characters reject the idea that Orthodox women are subservient to men and, unsurprisingly, so does their creator.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me,\u201d said Burshtein, \u201cbeing religious is liberating. It\u2019s not killing or closing or not letting me express my thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burshtein goes even further, asserting that women are the creative force.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe art world is women,\u201d she said. \u201c[Orthodox] men don\u2019t make films, they don\u2019t cook, they don\u2019t paint.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burshtein originally pitched The Wedding Plan<\/em> as a television series, but, after getting the green light and embarking on the script, she decided it would be a feature film. Although she doesn\u2019t say it, a movie is seen by more people around the world than an Israeli TV show.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m writing from my world to the outside world,\u201d the filmmaker explained in a phone interview during a press day in Washington, D.C. \u201cNot [just] to secular people but to non-Jews. It opens a window to my world to people who know nothing about my world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burshtein was born in New York and became religious while she was in film school in Jerusalem in the 1980s. She admits she didn\u2019t expect the attention her films have received abroad, but at the same time isn\u2019t surprised they touch audiences far beyond Tel Aviv and New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live in an age when women find their partner pretty late,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd sometimes they don\u2019t. It\u2019s very hard to find someone that you really want to share your life with. [My films] connect to that. All over the world, it\u2019s the same thing, the same heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wedding Plan<\/em> is unmistakably and unapologetically set in the Orthodox community but the crux of the film is Michal\u2019s urgent personal quest. Although her ostensible goal is to get married, a raw and powerful opening scene makes it clear that what she really craves and seeks is the respect of a committed partner.<\/p>\n

Michal\u2019s striving is universal and at times absurd, which spawns the film\u2019s humour. Because she has no time to waste, Michal (played by the fearless Noa Koler) confronts every prospective suitor with direct questions and shockingly honest confessions that derail and discomfit them.<\/p>\n

Michal\u2019s pain and desperation are palpable through the laughs, to the point where she makes a pilgrimage to Ukraine to the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. That\u2019s not an incidental detail, for Burshtein is a proponent of Rabbi Nachman\u2019s philosophy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can handle despair, and we can handle hope,\u201d she said. \u201cThe film is that movement between the two. You should be a fighter in the movement, and not get lost in the movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Vancouver Jewish Film Festival runs Nov. 2-9 at Fifth Avenue Cinemas and Nov. 10-12 at the Rothstein Theatre. For tickets and the full schedule, as well as the trailer for The Wedding Plan<\/em>, visit vjff.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Michael Fox<\/strong> is a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Noa Koler in The Wedding Plan, which screens Nov. 9 at Fifth Avenue Cinemas. (photo from Roadside Attractions) The grin-inducing trailer for The Wedding Plan nonetheless suggests one question \u2013 did Israeli filmmaker Rama Burshtein sell out? The Orthodox writer-director\u2019s acclaimed debut, Fill the Void, was an uncompromising story of a young Orthodox woman grappling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[787],"tags":[218,7466,2280,2281,3251],"class_list":["post-26354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv-film","tag-judaism","tag-noa-koler","tag-vancouver-jewish-film-festival","tag-vjff","tag-weddings"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}