Keeping the Faith
USA 2000
Reviewed by Philip Kemp
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Aged 13, Jake Schram, Brian Finn and Anna Reilly were best friends at school in Manhattan until Anna moved to California. Some 15 years later, Jake is a rabbi and Brian a Catholic priest. Anna returns to New York as a high-powered corporate executive. The three renew their friendship, but Brian is constrained by his cloth while Jake, soon to succeed the aged Rabbi Lewis, is under pressure to marry a Jewish woman.
On a date with television reporter Rachel, Jake invites Brian and Anna along as a supposed couple to ease the situation. All three are confused by their feelings. Having seen Rachel home, Jake goes to Anna's apartment and they fall into bed together. They keep their affair secret from Brian and everybody else, although the pressures of Anna's work and Jake's congregation put the relationship under strain.
About to be moved to San Francisco, Anna tells Jake she loves him. He refuses to commit and they break up. Anna calls Brian; when he learns what's been happening he violently confronts Jake. The two are later reconciled, but Jake keeps away from Anna. His mother Ruth tells him he should follow his heart. Jake announces at the synagogue he's in love with a Gentile; after some debate he's approved as the new rabbi. He rushes to Anna's office. They show up together at the inauguration of Brian and Jake's ecumenical social centre. Anna reveals she's been taking instruction from Rabbi Lewis.
Review
Religion has always enjoyed a pretty easy ride from Hollywood; even when it's taken as a subject for comedy, the jokes about priestly celibacy, rebellious nuns or even God himself have lacked any real satirical bite. For years 'religion' in Hollywood meant the Catholic Church, since the Jewish studio heads preferred to keep all mention of Jewishness off the screen. But since Judaism became an acceptable movie topic it's been treated with much the same respectful jocularity.
Keeping the Faith, Edward Norton's directorial debut, carries on this tradition, playing like a descendant of such bland comedies as Going My Way (1944) in which Fr Bing Crosby joshed with the Mother Superior. The wrestlings with conscience may go a little deeper, and the references to sex are a lot franker, but in the end no boats are seriously rocked. The rabbi enjoys an affair with a shiksa, but finally that's OK because she's studying to convert. The priest suffers pangs of jealousy, but conscience prevails and he conceals his urges beneath his soutane. For a while it looks as if the girl may start bedding both rabbi and priest, which could have made for a rather more interesting film; but Stuart Blumberg's script backs off and plays it safe.
Within these cautious confines the comedy is mostly fresh and diverting, with some shrewd insights into the use of faith as a displacement strategy. "Jews want rabbis to be the kind of Jews they don't have time to be," observes Jake, the rabbi who falls in love with his childhood friend Anna. "And Catholics want priests to be what they don't have the discipline to be," responds his priest friend Brian. Norton, who also plays Brian, draws likeable, lively performances from his cast, though Jenna Elfman as Anna takes a while to ease into her role and Norton's own abrupt character shift from good listener to brash conclusion-jumper feels awkwardly plot-driven.
But though it sidesteps the key issues in favour of a cop-out ending, Keeping the Faith can claim one major virtue: its wholehearted embrace, and indeed celebration, of the joys of a multiracial society. In one of the film's funniest moments, Jake enlivens the singing in his synagogue by introducing a black Gospel choir to join in. Most of the action is told in flashback, with Norton's priest recounting events to the traditional sympathetic barman, except that this stock character turns out to be a half-Punjabi "Sikh Catholic Muslim with Jewish in-laws". ("I am reading Dianetics," he adds.) And in the final scene, by way of a throwaway gag, we catch a glimpse of the Jewish television reporter Jake briefly dated - now with her new Afro-American boyfriend. It's a reprise of the message Norton put across in his Oscar-nominated performance in American History X - but conveyed here with far more good humour.
Credits
- Director
- Edward Norton
- Producers
- Hawk Koch
- Edward Norton
- Stuart Blumberg
- Screenplay
- Stuart Blumberg
- Director of Photography
- Anastas Michos
- Editor
- Malcolm Campbell
- Production Designer
- Wynn Thomas
- Music
- Elmer Bernstein
- ©Spyglass Entertainment Group, LP
- Production Companies
- Touchstone Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment present a Koch Co./Norton-Blumberg production
- a Barber/Birnbaum production
- Executive Producers
- Gary Barber
- Roger Birnbaum
- Jonathan Glickman
- Production Co-ordinator
- Ellen Gannon
- Unit Production Manager
- Jonathan Filley
- Location Manager
- Michael Stricks
- Assistant Directors
- Mark Cotone
- Stephen Lee Davis
- Mark Carter
- Script Supervisor
- Deirdre Horgan
- Casting
- Avy Kaufman
- Associate:
- Beth Bowling
- Camera Operators
- Ken Ferris
- Thomas G. Weston
- Digital Visual Effects
- Toybox
- Special Effects
- John Ottesen
- Art Director
- Chris Shriver
- Set Decorator
- Leslie E. Rollins
- Scenic Artist
- James E. Geyer
- Storyboard Artist
- Brick Mason
- Costume Designer
- Michael Kaplan
- Wardrobe Supervisors
- Tommy Boyer
- Cheryl Kilbourne-Kimpton
- Make-up
- Key Artist:
- Carla White
- Artist:
- Rita Ogden
- Hair
- Key Stylist:
- Victor De Nicola
- Stylist:
- Jacqueline Payne
- Main/End Titles Design
- Nina Saxon/New Wave Entertainment
- Opticals
- Buena Vista Imaging
- Singers
- Vivian Cherry
- Robin Clark
- Melonie L. Daniels
- Ada Dyer
- Lisa Fischer
- Frank Floyd
- Ayana George
- Loris Holland
- Paulette McWilliams
- Fonzi Thornton
- James 'D-Train' Williams
- Orchestrations
- Emily Bernstein
- Patrick Russ
- Executive in Charge of Music for the Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group
- Kathy Nelson
- Supervising Music Editor
- Ken Karmen
- Music Editors
- Lisa Jaime
- Kathy Durning
- Score Recordist/Mixer
- Dan Wallin
- Soundtrack
- "The Way Things Used to Be", "Heart of Mine" - Peter Salett; "La Engañadora", "Madhuvanthi", "Tres Lindas Cubanas", "Melodia del Rio", "Mandinga" - Rubén González; "Smooth" - Santana featuring Rob Thomas; "Power to the People" - Public Enemy; "Easy Riding" - Jake Elwood Blues Band; "Hot Nights" - John Leach; "Camels in the Desert" - Victor Cavini; "Go to Be Real" - Cheryl Lynn; "Play That Funky Music (White Boy)" - Wild Cherry; "Saludo a Chango" - Compay Segundo; "Pitseleh" - Elliott Smith; "Ein Keloheinu"; "Jessie's Girl"; "Ready to Take a Chance Again"; "Let's Get Away from It All"
- Sound Mixer
- Tom Nelson
- Re-recording Mixers
- Robert J. Litt
- Kevin Carpenter
- Michael Herbick
- Mix Recordists
- Marsha Sorce
- Kevin Webb
- Supervising Sound Editors
- J. Paul Huntsman
- Patrick Dodd
- Dialogue Editors
- Paul Curtis
- John Stuver
- Sound Effects Editors
- Adam Johnston
- Christopher Aud
- ADR
- Group Co-ordinator:
- Burton Sharp
- Editor:
- Francesca Dodd
- Foley
- Artists:
- Kevin Bartnof
- Casey Crabtree
- Recordist:
- Chris Munyon
- Mixer:
- Eric Gotthelf
- Editors:
- David L. Horton Jr
- David M. Horton Sr
- Technical Advisers
- Rabbi Hillel Norry
- Father John P. Duffell
- Raphael M.A. Frieder
- Stunt Co-ordinators
- George Aguilar
- Additional:
- Blaise Corrigan
- Helicopter Pilot
- Al Cerullo
- Cast
- Ben Stiller
- Rabbi Jacob 'Jake' Schram
- Edward Norton
- Father Brian Kilkenny Finn
- Jenna Elfman
- Anna Reilly
- Anne Bancroft
- Ruth Schram
- Eli Wallach
- Rabbi Lewis
- Ron Rifkin
- Larry Friedman
- Milos Forman
- Father Havel
- Holland Taylor
- Bonnie Rose
- Lisa Edelstein
- Ali Decker
- Rena Sofer
- Rachel Rose
- Ken Leung
- Don
- Brian George
- Indian bartender
- Catherine Lloyd Burns
- Debbie
- Susie Essman
- Ellen Friedman
- Stuart Blumberg
- Len
- Sam Goldberg
- Jake as a teen
- Blythe Auffarth
- Anna as a teen
- Michael Roman
- Brian as a teen
- Jonathan Silver
- Alan Klein
- Brian Anthony Wilson
- T-Bone
- Juan Piedrahita
- Omar
- Kelly Deadmon
- woman in bar
- Raphael M.A. Frieder
- cantor
- Bodhi Elfman
- Casanova
- Christopher Gardner
- Santi Formosa
- basketball kids
- Francine Beers
- Greta Mussbaum
- Rena Blumberg
- Chaya
- Ellen Hauptman
- Roz Lentz
- Liz Larsen
- Leslie
- Matt Winston
- Matt
- Nelson Avidon
- Joel
- David Wain
- Steve Posner
- Donna Hanover
- Wai Ching Ho
- confessional women
- Howard Greller
- doctor
- Brenda Thomas Denmark
- nurse
- Marilyn Cooper
- 'Don't Walk' lady
- Hawk Koch
- Rabbinical professor
- Craig Castaldo
- Radio Man
- Keith Perry
- old man hit with censor
- John Arocho
- bully
- Derrick Eason
- co-worker
- Ray Carlson
- monsignor
- Barbara Haas
- mother in synagogue reception room
- Sunny Keyser
- Lorna Lable
- Paula Raflo
- mothers
- Hillary Brook Canter
- Dana Lubotsky
- Alexandra Rella
- daughters
- Eugene S. Katz
- Mohel
- Tony Rossi
- hot dog vendor
- John P. Duffell
- Father Duffell
- Keith Williams
- AIDS patient
- Certificate
- 12
- Distributor
- Buena Vista International (UK)
- 11.648 feet
- 129 minutes 26 seconds
- Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS
- In Colour
- Prints by
- Technicolor