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Film review

Indie Flicks: Laughing along with the Steins

By STEVE PERSALL
Published June 22, 2006

Keeping Up with the Steins (PG-13) (99 min.) - Scott Marshall's movie is so confident in its satire of affluent Jews, yet so affectionate to their culture, that it's hard to believe he isn't Jewish. Marshall is a Catholic, which makes his best casting choice even more surprising. His father is television production legend Garry Marshall, who says that his voice, mannerisms and occasional Yiddish slang were picked up alongside Jewish friends during a childhood in Brooklyn alongside Jewish friends and along the Borscht Belt.

It isn't necessary to be Jewish to enjoy Scott Marshall's movie, just as audiences didn't need to be Greek to make My Big Fat Greek Wedding a hit. Both films are steeped in their respective cultures, yet apply simple comedy riffs that are universal. Nothing here is irreverent or difficult to predict, but is presented with absolute disregard for the notion that nobody wants to see movies like this anymore.

Keeping Up with the Steins has a little song, a little dance and lots of seltzer in its pants. This is Scott Marshall's film, made with his father's sitcom sensibilities - funny stuff, crisis, funny stuff, resolution - repeated as often as needed before the happy ending. Most critics will sniff at the mechanics. Not I. I laughed more at Keeping Up with the Steins than at any other comedy this summer and forgave its flaws more easily.

The Stein bar mitzvah is a hilarious example of excess, a Titanic-themed affair in which the honoree arrives onstage aboard an ocean liner float, posed like Leonardo DiCaprio with a looker in his arms. Adam stews through each expensive frill, wondering how he'll top it. Benjamin doesn't care much; he's worried about reading the Torah in front of an audience and pleasing his father.

Adam also has paternal issues; his estranged father, Irwin (Garry Marshall), unexpectedly visits for the bar mitzvah, wearing a ponytail on his head and a lovely neo-hippie (Daryl Hannah) on his arm. Marshall's performance is a hammy gem, reminiscent of Peter Falk's work in last year's equally (surprisingly) engaging The Thing About My Folks. It takes old pros like those to make such sentimental fluff and cultural inside gags succeed.

The director's show business ties bring other seasoned actors to the project. Richard Benjamin makes a rare appearance as a rabbi more interested in selling his new book than answering spiritual questions. Doris Roberts adds a few touching moments as Irwin's ex-wife, coping with his midlife crisis. Those subplots - two of too many - could be explored with more conflict, but that would kill the laughs. Even Arnie's son, who could rub his bar mitzvah in Benjamin's face, doesn't. It is nicer in the long run that everyone gets along except Adam and Arnie; Piven and Miller are amusing antagonists.

This is an imperfect movie played with perfect charm, right down to a surprise cameo at Benjamin's bar mitzvah. It is merely a blip in a loud summer movie season but one of its better surprises. B

- STEVE PERSALL, Times film critic

[Last modified June 23, 2006, 10:05:26]