SUNDANCE24 REVIEW: Between the Temples [2024]

Rating: R | Runtime: 111 minutes
Release Date: August 23rd, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Director(s): Nathan Silver
Writer(s): C. Mason Wells & Nathan Silver

It’s okay to be loud … and to be sloppy.

Without ruining the joke, I have to say that the opening scene to Nathan Silver’s Between the Temples is a perfect encapsulation of what you can expect from his and C. Mason Wells’ script. The way it asks the audience to make an assumption alongside a character that will inevitably be upended. The way it may upend that assumption again to always keep the awkwardness and humor energized. The way it provides space for the characters to maintain their own perspectives on a single moment despite that perspective being vastly different than the others. It’s so very good.

You almost can’t imagine how the rest of the film will match that prologue because it feels so meticulously constructed as a self-contained gag to introduce its tone and characters, but there’s really zero drop-off afterwards. Some scenes work better than others as some can feel a bit out-of-place (a highly sexualized interaction kind of comes out of nowhere to take you out of the whole despite still proving effective), but the cast is fully on-board and the consequences of those moments always bear fruit. So, you should definitely trust that Silver and company know what they’re doing and that the inherent discomfort on-screen is never a mistake.

We’re dealing with two people at a crossroads of identity. Two generous souls who have lost someone and are at different points in their grief. Ben (Jason Schwartzman) is still numb from his wife’s death. He cannot sing anymore despite being his temple’s cantor and his faith is shaken in a way that has him asking a priest if converting to Catholicism means he might see her again in Heaven. Carla (Carol Kane) is conversely embracing her present. Not because she’s forgotten her husband or because she doesn’t miss him anymore, but because his absence allows her to listen to her own desires—one of which is to have the bat mitzvah her communist parents wouldn’t allow all those years ago.

It’s this desire that reunites the two decades after she taught him music. Carla’s tenacity forces Ben to rediscover what it is about Judaism that can help guide him through his pain while reminding him of the power of art that drew him to his vocation in the first place. And Ben’s desire for life—something he had obviously lost—invigorates Carla to find the bravery (Kane made a distinction between bravery and courageousness during the Q&A) to do this thing she knows her atheist son will think silly or worse. She gave him a voice when he was a child and now, in the process of returning the favor, she’s steering him in the direction to give that voice back to himself.

It’s a very moving story in that respect. The bond that forms between these characters is real regardless of it being undefinable (although everyone around them is quick to label it so that they can subsequently reject it). It’s only made stronger as a result since everyone else is generally more interested in what they want for Ben and Carla rather than listening and acknowledging it’s not a shared desire. Dolly De Leon and Caroline Aaron as Ben’s parents, Matthew Shear as Carla’s son, and Robert Smigel and Madeline Weinstein as Ben’s rabbi and his daughter/Ben’s potential love interest are all wonderful—especially during a Shabbat dinner scene rivaling the anxiety-inducing chaos from “The Bear’s” Christmas.

The world wants Ben and Carla to conform to the idea of who they once were. Not maliciously, but definitely selfishly just the same. Ben’s loved ones think they can fix him by jump-starting his libido. Carla’s family doesn’t think she needs fixing at all. So, it’s no surprise that they find a sense of freedom in each other. A safe place devoid of judgment to be who they want to be even if it might seem absurd on paper. Even if they don’t fully understand the breadth of what this evolution means and are caught in the confusion of how they got there. In each other lies the purity of compassion and inclusion family and religion should supply. Things that money, ego, and entitlement have begun rendering obsolete.