Premiering in competition at Sundance, screening to warm responses at both Berlinale and Tribeca, and featured on our must-watch list for this summer, “Between the Temple”’ is a bit of a breakout for longtime independent filmmaker Nathan Silver, who’s now receiving more attention on his work than perhaps he ever has. In part, this has to do with the major starpower Silver was able to gather for his upstate New York-set comedy about a cantor whose grief is given respite by an older woman from his past seeking bat mitzvah lessons. The cantor is played by Jason Schwartzman in a performance that pairs perfectly with the wistful work he did on last year’s “Asteroid City,” while Carol Kane brings her lighthearted, yet impactful presence to the bat mitzvah student he teaches.
Following the accidental death of his wife, Schwartzman’s cantor Ben finds himself suffocated by grief, pushed to regress into childlike habits like running away when he’s supposed to be leading services and moving in with his mothers despite them often driving him nuts. Perhaps his deepest regression though — the one that ultimately allows him to grow past his pain — is when he reconnects with his childhood music teacher, Carla, a woman seeking her own reinvention by having the bat mitzvah ceremony her non-religious, Communist Jewish parents never allowed her. As this former teacher, Kane is given a role that captures the full range of her abilities, with IndieWire’s review saying her “non-judgmental warmth sells Carla as a clear panacea for a grieving man who just wants to feel the unconditional love of being a kid again.”
The film also features Robert Smigel, known for his work as Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, as the rabbi at Ben’s temple and Caroline Aaron of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and Dolly De Leon of “The Triangle Sadness” as Ben’s overbearing mothers.
As a dual character study revolving around regaining one’s sense of happiness after a great loss, IndieWire wrote, “‘Between the Temples’ — its punny title pointing towards the kind of latitude that Ben and Carla are begging for in order to find their bliss — ultimately isn’t sure if happiness is viable in the long-term. But in focusing less on the happiness we imagine for other people than on the happiness we get to share with them instead, it finds enough fleeting joy to make being alive feel like its own eternal reward.”
“Between the Temples” releases in theaters on August 23. Watch the trailer, an IndieWire exclusive, above and check out the posters below.
