Product: Keeping the Faith (2000)
Rating: 5.0
Mr. Norton Keeps It Real
When this movie came out, some expressed surprise at Edward Norton's involvement. This, remember, was the same guy who had taken and would continue to take the most outrageous, most provocative, nastiest roles available in mainstream Hollywood, including split-personality sufferers, high-tech thieves, white supremacists, and sleazy drug dealers. And here he was portraying a Catholic priest of all things, and going so far as to produce and direct the thing to make sure he got the chance. Right.Then again, when you think about it, that was probably the most unexpected thing Edward Norton could do. He would enjoy that, I'm sure. What's more, consider this - hundreds of years ago it seemed that people were easily embarrassed by the fact that they had bodies, but today a lot of people seem equally embarrassed by the fact that they have souls. Religion and spirituality are like a raw nerve. If you're Edward Norton and you want to keep people on their toes, what better subject could you tackle?"Keeping the Faith" deals with three childhood friends from New York who meet up again in young adulthood. Norton has gone to seminary and become Father Brian, Ben Stiller has done the same and become Rabbi Jake, and Jenna Elfman as Anna Riley has returned from California as a high-powered corporate fixer who's delighted at the chance to see her buddies again. It's also noteworthy that the priest and the rabbi are both highly successful by the terms of their work, being the junior clergy at a couple of New York's biggest houses of worship. And there's a certain amount of slapstick - Father Brian setting himself on fire with the incense burner and Rabbi Jake fainting at a circumcision - but as our story begins they have settled well into their roles and increased attendance at the church and the synagogue by several orders of magnitude with their exciting modern approach to the old verities. They've remained close friends, too.Actually, as our story begins, Father Brian staggers down the street as drunk as a lord, falling into trash heaps and looking to unburden himself. He finds a sympathetic bartender and talks to him about the early years with Jake and Anna, how she came back, and what drove him to drink. You shouldn't have much trouble guessing, but as always, it's the way the story's told that makes the movie worthwhile.In the meantime, one of the best things about this movie is the part that is not about the relationships between these three. Jake and Brian confer with their mentors (Eli Wallach and Milos Forman), counsel the young people of their congregations, and make themselves useful and admirable outside of church or synagogue. You also see them during services and admire the ways they encourage participation rather than letting the congregants sit there and fall asleep. The story focuses more on Jake, so you get his dealings with the synagogue board, and there's a terrific scene where he brings in some special guests to conclude the Sabbath service with a bang. And of course, Jake has one more issue to deal with that Brian does not - he's got every parent in the synagogue setting him up with their various daughters. This is tough enough at the best of times and even more so with Anna Riley around. Thus we come to the engine that drives the plot.All of these performances are dead on, with particular gratitude to Ben Stiller. He comes from a background of comic satire, where things are exaggerated to the point of silliness. This role, thankfully, he takes seriously. His last speech to his congregation on the holiest day of the Jewish year is a model of understatement, with the critical background of passion. One false note and it could have ruined the whole movie. Instead, it becomes the moment everything revolves around, even the subsequent scenes where you find out how all the problems get resolved.Other standouts are the two older clergy, Elfman and Norton, Brian George as the somewhat confused multicultural bartender that Father Brian meets, and Ken Leung who steals his scenes trying to sell Brian and Jake a more expensive karaoke machine. Someone ought to make a whole movie about that guy. There's also Anne Bancroft deliciously playing Rabbi Jake's magnificent and occasionally embarrassing mother, who has a secret sorrow that kicks off Act 3. If I'm not mistaken, Ms. Bancroft converted to Judaism when she married Mel Brooks, but whether she did or not, she makes as convincing a Jewish mother as any Italian I've ever seen.I could get picky about some errors in Jewish practice. In case you're interested, here's one; Rabbi Jake coaches an adolescent, whose voice is changing, in his Bar Mitzvah chant, which is hilarious when delivered. I noticed his portion comes from the first chapter of Genesis. Jews read that portion in late September or early October, a few weeks after Yom Kippur. Then a few weeks later in movie time, by gum, it's Yom Kippur. Whoops.Well, that's what I get for having been to Hebrew school. Maybe this movie makes similar errors in Catholic practice, I don't know. Either way, I'll be damned if I'm going to let such trivialities overshadow the first movie in God knows how long to take people's spirituality seriously, however funny it is. And it's very funny.And here's one more fun detail - the plot of "Keeping the Faith" focuses mostly on the relationship between Rabbi Jake and Anna. In real life, Jenna Elfman stands a few inches taller than Ben Stiller, and these moviemakers did not try to hide this nor did they bother to mention it in the script. It's simply a fact. That's some sort of breakthrough in Hollywood, I think. Just one more reason to love this picture.Benshlomo says, God likes it when we laugh.