Holy Rollers (***)

Among the Amish there is the tradition of rumspinga, a period during which those on the cusp of adulthood may experience a taste of the greater world, able to return afterward to the community by their own choosing. There is no equivalent among Hasidic Jews, but Brooklynite Sam (Jesse Eisenberg) initiates his own ritual in hopes of gaining a financial independence. Given the chance to make easy money by transporting packages overseas, he comes into contact with people of a different sort. He slowly adapts to the ways of the Gentiles and figures out the nature of his illegal cargo, in turn recruiting other credulous folks who resemble his former self. As he alienates his own family and friends, he discovers concepts like partying, and women who put out.

As a fish-out-of-water story, this fact-based drama is just fine, and I had no cause to believe the portrait of the culture was incorrect. But the appeal is more, hey, isn’t it weird that a Hasidic dude became a big drug dealer, rather than any sort of deeper look at the values espoused by a cloistered culture and the ways such traditions are maintained. (For something like that, see Ushpizin, in which two convicts wander into an Orthodox community in Israel.) Eisenberg may look a bit different with his long curls, but his performance is of a piece with the trying-to-fit-in teens he’s played in The Squid and the Whale and Adventureland.

IMDB link

viewed 4/10/2010 (Philadelphia Film Festival Spring Preview) and reviewed 7/6/2010

Ushpizin (***)

This has the apparent distinction of being the first feature made in Israel’s extreme Orthodox (Hasidic) community. In one sense, this semi-comic tale’s no more about Hasidic Jews than The Legend of Zorro is “about” 1850s Californians. However, the unfamiliarity of the setting will make it a primer on this culture for most viewers. The actual (mostly true) story is about a holiday that brings a poor Hasidic couple both a seemingly miraculous gift and some ex-convict houseguests who test their faith. [The Q&A with director Giddi Dar after the screening I saw was as interesting as the film. Star Shuli Rand, who also wrote the script, had been a well-known actor who’d retired upon becoming Ultra-Orthodox and only agreed to act again because the story could be filmed where he lived using community members as the cast, and his actual wife playing that role in the movie. As the essence of the story is universal, it became a big hit in Israel with both secular and religious audiences, with the Hasidim resorting to bootleg DVDs, since they would not go to ordinary, non-sex-segregated theaters.]

IMDb link

circulated via email 11/3/05 and posted 10/18/13