Many try to recreate the arch whimsy of Hal Ashby, a director whose offbeat comedies feel wholly singular even with all the imitators that have followed him. Wes Anderson has spun that quirky sensitivity into a style all his own, while Alexander Payne  – particularly in last year’s The Holdovers – simply marinate in the funny, simmering ennui. Nathan Silver’s Between the Temples is another film in this tradition, focusing on a Jewish cantor played by Jason Schwartzman, who has struggled personally and professionally since losing his wife just over a year ago. The film’s melancholic tone is peppered with frequent, hysterical humor that leaves the audience in a frequent limbo between joy and sadness. It’s a film about the labor intensity that comes with trying to dig yourself out of crisis, but Silver finds the whole process very funny.

Temples is shot by Sean Price Williams, a cinematographer best known for his work with Alex Ross Perry (Golden Exits, Her Smell) and the Safdie brothers (Heaven Knows What, Good Time). Williams shoots his movies with a grit, his handheld shots moving into ostentatious zooms and intimate close-ups. This is all to say that his framing is noticeably and intentionally off-kilter. A style that fits with Perry and the Safdies, whose screenplays often center on turmoil, both internal and external. Silver is using Williams in a similar vein, letting the chaotic camera bring verve to this slight tale of a man unable to process his place in the world. That Silver and Williams embrace the grain of shooting on film and using as much natural light as possible gives this caustic tale real warmth.

Cantor Ben Gottlieb’s main job at the Sinai Temple in upstate New York is to sing the Torah during service. In his grief, he’s been unable to perform for close to a year. The rabbi, Bruce (Robert Smigel), is patient and understanding, willing to give Ben the time he needs to recover. It helps that Ben’s step-mother, Judith (Dolly De Leon), is a real estate mogul, on the board of trustees and a major donor to the temple. Judith is married to Ben’s mother, Meira (Caroline Aaron), and Ben has been living in their basement since his wife’s death. This comes with its own troubles as Judith – an adult convert to Judaism whose devoutness expresses itself with strict observance of tradition and rules – is frequently trying to set Ben up with a new Jewish girl. Ben rebuffs all attempts and prefers solitude above all else.

Things change when he runs into Carla O’Connor (Carol Kane) in a local bar. Carla is a free-spirited septuagenarian who just so happens to be Ben’s childhood music teacher.  Their reunion not only triggers memories but gives Ben his first instances of happiness in quite a while. When Carla visits Ben at the temple to say that she’s finally ready to have a very delayed bat mitzvah, Ben is at first confused and then content. They begin spending more time together, and their meetings become more and more intimate. Like Ben, Carla has also lost her spouse, though her marriage appears defined by control. Her husband was a staunch atheist who forbade religious practice of any kind, hence her decades without Jewish confirmation (and her non-semitic last name). Ben becomes infatuated, both with Carla and performing her bat mitzvah. With her help, he may finally find his will to perform again.

Amidst the array of Jewish women Ben is set up with, he’s introduced to Bruce’s daughter, Gabby (Madeline Weinstein). In this film’s myriad of damaged souls, Gabby is a particularly vulnerable one, having recently been engaged and then abandoned. The rejection has stung her beyond belief and she approaches Ben with affection, but also desperation. Her emotional rawness separates her from the rest of the conveyor belt of Jewesses. In a stylistic flourish, Weinstein plays both Gabby as well Ben’s late wife in short flashbacks, one of many creative choices that gives Between the Temples a buoyant surrealism. In a movie that could have been content to be a straightforward indie about the peculiarities of human connection, Silver is unafraid to let Temples become truly strange in its artistic touches.

It does all this while never alienating its audience. The films of Alex Ross Perry and the Safdie Brothers can be defined by their emotional and physical harshness, but Silver takes their aesthetic and applies it to cerebral comedy. The chemistry between Schwartzman and Kane goes a long way toward keeping the film’s more eccentric impulses at bay, but Temples also possesses the joke frequency of a mainstream studio comedy, even if it doesn’t present itself that way. Even as its themes turn dark, Silver’s behavioral humor is consistently laugh-out-loud funny, riddled it is with idiosyncratic detail and small characters who bring bright, hilarious flashes. Not since the Aqua Velva in Zodiac has a mixed drink gotten so many laughs the way a litany of mudslides gets in this film.

The foundation of Between the Temples are the performances of Schwartzman and Kane. Ben and Carla have a hard-to-define connection that comes close to romantic love. Certainly, Ben finds himself exploring Gabby physically in part because he’s unable to do so with Carla. Temples never goes full Harold and Maude, and Silver’s film isn’t as satirical as that movie was attempting to be, but he makes the case that their connection goes further and deeper than pure sexual passion. Their relationship upsets not only Judith and Meira, but also Carla’s temperamental son Nat (Matthew Shear). That their relationship starts to feel forbidden only draws them closer, until they’re forced to face the harsh reality: they cannot both continue their relationship and continue their lives as they currently live it.

I found this weird little indie to be superbly effective and stunningly moving. Schwartzman and Kane are spectacular in their roles, but the way Silver keeps Aaron, De Leon, and particularly Weinstein, in their orbit is a brilliant balancing act. That he does so while still keeping Temples appropriately funny and somber in the right moments feels a little bit like a miracle. Much like Wes Anderson, Silver’s journey through Ashby territory leads into something new, something unique. The level of examination into its characters’ Jewishness feels holistic next to its interpretations of the human condition. Perhaps I’m overselling the film’s likability – I’m sure there are many that will feel stifled by its untamed quirkiness – but Between the Temples earns every layer of provocation that it throws at the audience.

 

Directed by Nathan Silver