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Oct. 28, 2005
A very Jewish movie
Streep's latest film vehicle has laughs, lessons.
KATHARINE HAMER EDITOR
It's every Jewish mother's secret nightmare: an eligible son starts
dating a woman who's not only 14 years older than him, but she's
not even Jewish! That's the premise of Prime, which opens
in theatres this weekend – coupled with the fact that the new
girlfriend is also the client of the aforementioned Jewish mom.
Meryl Streep, who is of course not Jewish but is infinitely capable
of inhabiting characters with a variety of accents and backgrounds,
perfectly encompasses the overprotective Jewish mother/psychotherapist,
Lisa Metzger. Streep sits sweetly in her office chair, offering
sensible advice – until she discovers that her recently divorced,
37-year-old client, Rafi Gardet (Uma Thurman) is dating her 23-year-old
son Dave (Bryan Greenberg). Streep clutches frenetically at her
large wooden beads and at her chest, rolling her eyes wildly but
keeping her smile in place, as she is forced to listen to the intimate
details of her son's love life.
Though Thurman is luminous as ever on screen, this romantic comedy
role seems a little out of her range. Although it's possible the
movie's producers were seeking someone with exactly Thurman's aloof
manner, she doesn't appear to have the tenderness or underlying
goofiness to make you believe in her allure beyond the purely physical.
As David Bloomberg, however, Greenberg (known to those of a certain
age as the star of the television drama One Tree Hill), comes
across well as a young man with romantic yearnings who's uncertain
how much responsibility he's prepared to take on in his life. Though
he's enamored with Rafi, his lifestyle (he hangs out in noisy nightclubs,
lives with his grandparents and sleeps in a single bed while trying
to make it as an artist) hardly matches her glamorous apartment,
job and desire for children.
The film also features some of the most overtly Jewish characters
and scenes outside of a Woody Allen movie, including a slightly
neurotic but well-meaning family that gathers every Friday for Shabbat
and proceeds to interrupt each other's conversations, as well as
a woeful great-grandmother, Bubbe (Lotte Mandel), who keeps clonking
herself over the head with a frying pan. Dave's best friend, Morris
(Jon Abrahams), specializes in throwing pies at failed dates and
one set of grandparents (Zak Orth and Naomi Aborn) is arguing about
whether to take an apartment-swap and move to Florida for the summer.
(The other set, played by Jerry Adler and Doris Belack, indelicately
grills Thurman's character over the dinner table. "So,"
says Belack, "I hear you're interested in converting to Judaism?")
The other star of the movie is New York itself. Set largely in and
around Greenwich Village, Prime features the now-legendary
bakery, Magnolia's, the West 4th Street basketball courts, liveried
doormen and brownstone stoops - all a reminder of the city's charms,
for those who've experienced it in person.
In all of our lives, there are those who make a lasting impression.
This is something Prime explores to a great – and uncharacteristically
subtle, for Hollywood – effect. This is not necessarily about
happy endings, but about the journey and what we learn along the
way. Ultimately, Prime is a romantic comedy with a bittersweet
twist.
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