Review: A rabbi and an older student find reciprocity in the playful ‘Between the Temples’
Have you heard the one about the cantor who can’t sing and the retired music teacher who walk into a bar? In Nathan Silver’s thoroughly charming comedy “Between the Temples,” the only punchline to this setup is that these two find a singular kind of connection with each other. It’s a good thing that the film is completely hilarious too. Writer-director Silver has been churning out intimate, handcrafted character studies for 15 years (this is his ninth feature), but “Between the Temples,” co-written with C. Mason Wells, feels like his biggest film to date, even though it’s still a small indie shot on 16mm. He has cast bigger stars — Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane — alongside his usual company players (which include his mother Cindy), and this feels like the film of Silver’s most likely to break through to mainstream success. “Between the Temples” is a laugh-out-loud comedy about religion and unlikely relationships, a kind of Jewish “Harold and Maude.” It’s premised upon a surprising connection between an older woman and a younger man, but the ways in which it’s like Hal Ashby‘s 1971