It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional
... View MoreThis is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
... View MoreEach character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
... View MoreThe movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
... View MoreI am a secular Jew, but this movie evokes the parts of Judaism that I love and revere: the Jew food, the harrowing escape from pogroms in Eastern Europe, the humor. You can taste the lox, the herring, the whitefish, right through the TV screen (the movie was used for "Pledge Week" at Channel 13--I taped it and zapped the pledge parts). I related most to the humor of the 4th generation of Russes, who had the nerve to name one of their sandwich concoctions ("the Hebe"). After the 3rd generation complained, they renamed it "the Hebester", so it's not so offensive, just a play on "hipster." I've had people complain when I call the cuisine "Jew Food," but "the Hebe" goes further than I probably would--but I'm of the age of the third generation, not the fourth. And I might complain about the Hebe, but I'd eat it (lox and WASABI--perfect together).
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