Do other people go see movies on Mothers' day? Apparently not in the greater Chicago area, and maybe I found out why.
The Hallmark corporation - because you know they are the ones behind all these goofy holidays (Mothers' day, Fathers' day, Sweetest Day, etc.) - obviously did not take weather patterns north of the Mason/Dixon line into account when they threw a dart into an area of the calendar that didn't already have a real holiday in order to set a date for this festival of Mothers. It's too cold to go out, too wet to play, so all we could do was watch bad movies all day.
It's not that I don't think it's important to set aside time for our parents, or even to give them days (just every now and then) where we kids take care of things like the dishes and the trash. But does this day have to be rigidly set, and do I really have to celebrate it by purchasing a $7 card from Wallgreens that tells my Mother in lovely script how I see the work of God Almighty in her every day? Can't I just take her out to dinner as a surprise sometime, or schedule a round of golf when the weather outside doesn't remind me of Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day?
Hallmark says, "No".
So, in lieu of anything better to do aside from staying home and watching "I Love the 70s!" on VH1, my sisters and I took my mother to see Keeping up with the Steins, the only movie at the AMC 30 that I hadn't already seen and that didn't look like complete trash. I'm sorry, but I'm not paying $9.50 (about half of what I had to pay in Los Angeles) to see a remake of an old Shelley Winters movie. The story put me to sleep when I was like eight, and I'm supposed to be on the edge of my seat now? To save everyone some money, I'll let you in on a little secret: the boat capsizes, miraculously a small group of people are left alive, and thanks to some heroics from unlikely places, a few people escape the wreck. You are then supposed to exit the theatre feeling happy and satisfied, apparently forgetting about the three to four thousand people who didn't make it out.
Sorry, that's neither here nor there, and the mere fact that I've been skirting my review of The Steins probably says a lot.
It was cute? I don't know, it made me chuckle a few times, and laugh out loud once, but for the most part I was pretty bored.
This jewish kid, Ben, who is going through puberty, socially awkward, and trapped between turbulent family relationships in the older generations, has to get ready to "become a man", which apparently happens at a party where all of the adults get trashed and the boys whose voices haven't even change dance with girls whose chests have erupted. As one character says (more or less, as I don't have the script in front of me), "Last month she didn't have tits, and now it's like 'Wham! titties!'". And that might have been one of the least contrived lines of dialogue in the film.
Memo to Hollywood writers: I am already familiar with Jewish stereotypes. The grandmother who keeps saying, "I have an opinion, but I'm not saying anything" isn't funny. Nor is the overblown use of Yiddish, which made the old Jewish mother in the front row of the theatre crack the hell up, but left me wondering why these characters randomly used the old language when half the members of the family didn't even understand what Ben's reading from the Hoftorrum? (I know I butchered that) meant.
In the end, all of the Jewish stuff really got in the way. This was a movie about a family finally coming together, and a father and son (although not the one you originally would expect) coming together after years of anger and resentment. This could have been set at a wedding, a funeral, a first communion, a scientology reanimation of the dead, or Britney Spears' second baby shower. The choice that was made (a bar mitzvah) seemed to be a cop out. A setting that allowed for a lot of goodnatured Jewish jokes, preventing the writers from having to develop real comedy. Sure, the movie is partly about a boy's "Coming of Age", but as we learn by the end, the ceremony and party aren't really what defines a man.
So put this movie in another setting. They can still be Jewish, but do they have to be rich Jews from Brentwood? Come on. Does Neil Diamond have to be the one to sing at the party? Does the grandma have to cook a brisquet and matzaball soup? One of the characters in the movie is actually seen carrying a Yiddish to English dictionary in her back pocket, and by that point in the movie I was starting to wish I had stopped at Borders to pick one up.
I don't even know how to grade this movie? Daryl Sabara did a good job playing Ben, and I almost always enjoy Jeremy Piven (playing Ben's father). Garry Marshall and Doris Roberts steal the show as the estranged grandparents, bringing to the screen an almost unexplainable connection after all of those years apart that for moments at a time is able to erase the perpetual hum-drum-ness of this film.
The Jewish lady in the front row loved this film. I was left wishing that the DaVinci Code had come out a week sooner.
The Verdict:
Jews: B
Goys: C