Bad Shabbos makes for good viewing
Fans of the Netflix series Nobody Wants This will love Bad Shabbos, a new film that similarly deals with an interfaith relationship, this time between the Jewish David (John Bass) and the Catholic-raised Meg (Meghan Leathers). Director Daniel Robbins’s film is more farcical than the Adam Brody/Kristen Bell series, but shares some of its sweetness, as well as some of its more cliched stereotypes. That the movie won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival is no surprise. Lightweight but amusing, the picture is a definite crowd pleaser.
Bad Shabbos, unlike Nobody Wants This, starts with Meg already well into the process of converting to Judaism. Meg’s Wisconsin Catholic parents John (John Bedford Lloyd) and Beth (Catherine Curtin) seem fine with that, but David’s mother Ellen (Kyra Sedgewick) has stereotypical Jewish-mother reservations, which are played broadly and a bit obviously. The plot involves the out-of-towners John and Beth coming to New York’s Upper West Side to meet future son-in-law David’s parents for the first time at the family’s Shabbos dinner—the Friday evening meal marking the start of the Sabbath.
Screenwriters Robbins and Zack Weiner throw in an added element to the story’s inherent culture clash. Without revealing any spoilers, suffice to say an unfortunate accident befalls a character that nobody in David’s family likes. The majority of the film involves David, Meg, David’s parents, sister Abby (Milana Vayntrub), younger brother Adam (Theo Taplitz), and doorman Jordan (Method Man) racing to take care of the predicament before John and Beth arrive. Mayhem and madcap hilarity ensue as the family tries to rush through Shabbos dinner while keeping Meg’s parents in the dark as to what’s actually going on, resulting in misunderstandings, physical comedy, and clever dissembling.
The pacing is quick, and even when the story leans toward the ridiculous, the game cast keeps us engaged. The dynamic between David Paymer, as David’s father Richie, and Method Man is worth the price of admission alone, and Taplitz nearly steals the picture with his portrayal of the neurotic, Israel Defense Force-obsessed Adam. The New York setting is sure to remind some viewers of the best of Woody Allen’s films, and the picture’s comedic elements feel almost Shakespearan in tone, mimicking the improbability, exaggeration, laughter and love of the Bard’s great farces. While you wait for season two of Nobody Wants This, Bad Shabbos should tide you over for a bit.
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Bad Shabbos is now playing in theaters, including at the Rialto Cinemas Elmwood in Berkeley and the Landmark Opera Plaza in San Francisco.
