Sundance review: 'Between the Temples' is a comic symphony of discomfort, and a showcase for Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane

A crisis in faith spirals out of control in director Nathan Silver’s “Between the Temples,” and the movie’s narrative comes close to doing the same.

Ben Gottlieb, played by Jason Schwartzman, is a cantor in a synagogue in upstate New York who has been on sabbatical for nearly a year — because, we find out as the movie goes, of his wife’s accidental death just over a year earlier. He tries to sing at a temple service, but his voice won’t cooperate, and goes to hide in his room, in the house of his moms, Mira (Caroline Aaron) and Judith (Dolly de Leon). 

Ben’s boss, Rabbi Bruce (Robert Smigel), is generous and lets Ben continue to teach the bar and bat mitzvah kids to prepare them for their big event. One day, the class is interrupted by a non-traditional student: Carla O’Connor (Carol Kane), whom Ben recognizes as his grade-school music teacher. She’s retired and widowed, and tells Ben she wants to reconnect with her Jewish roots and take her bat mitzvah — and Ben, after some prodding, agrees to take her on.

The relationship between Ben and Carla takes some off-putting turns (aided in one scene by the hallucinogens in the tea her housemate makes for them). Further complications come from Carla’s adult son (Matthew Shear), and from Rabbi Bruce’s adult daughter, Gabby (Madeline Weinstein), who becomes a wee bit obsessed by the novel Ben’s late wife wrote. 

Silver, who co-wrote the script with C. Mason Wells, thrives in the chaos of throwing these slightly off-kilter characters together to see the sparks fly. There are fun comic bits of business — a door in Mira and Judith’s house that noisily doesn’t stay shut, or Rabbi Bruce’s penchant for cheating at golf — that add some depth to this story of grief, love and other uncomfortable feelings.

The high-wire act Silver and Wells perform ultimately can’t sustain itself — though there’s an epic dinner scene where everyone talks over each other in a symphony of anxieties. What holds “Between the Temples” together are the performances, particularly of Schwartzman as the morose cantor and Kane as the free-spirited older woman who learns that she’s still teaching him important lessons.

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‘Between the Temples’

★★★

Screening in the U.S. Dramatic competition of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Not rated, but probably R for sexual content and language. Running time: 111 minutes.

Screens again: Saturday, January 20, 11 a.m., Megaplex Gateway 1/2/3, Salt Lake City; Saturday, January 20, 10 p.m., Redstone Cinemas 7, Park City; Tuesday, January 23, 6 p.m., Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Salt Lake City; Wednesday, January 24, 3:30 p.m., The Ray, Park City. Also available online via the Sundance portal, Thursday-Sunday, January 25-28.