# Keeping the Faith (2000)

### reviewed by
Rose 'Bams' Cooper

    '3 Black Chicks Review...'

KEEPING THE FAITH (2000) Rated PG-13; running time 129 minutes Genre: Romantic Comedy IMDB site: http://us.imdb.com/Details?0171433 Official site: http://studio.go.com/movies/keepingthefaith/ Written by: Stuart Blumberg Directed by: Edward Norton Starring: Edward Norton, Ben Stiller, Jenna Elfman, Eli Wallach, Anne Bancroft, Ron Rifkin, Brian George, Ken Leung

Review Copyright Rose Cooper, 2000 Review URL: http://www.3blackchicks.com/bamskeepfaith.html

It's amazing where the day will take you. Facing two movie doubleheaders this weekend, I was all set to be blown away by WHERE THE MONEY IS and bored spitless by KEEPING THE FAITH. Would "oh ye of little faith" be too lame to say here?

The Story (WARNING: **spoilers contained below**): Brian (Edward Norton), Jake (Ben Stiller), and Anna (Jenna Elfman) were inseparable friends as kids; Anna moved to California with her family, leaving Brian and Jake behind in New York. Brian grew up to be a priest, Jake became a rabbi, and both were determined to "kick the dust off faith", bringing it into the 21st century, by staying in touch with their community. This is made somewhat difficult by the resistance of the elder rabbis (Eli Wallach, Ron Rifkin) who want to maintain long-standing tradition. Jake's life is further complicated by the matchmaking service is mother (Anne Bancroft) wants to perform for him--against his will.

Now all grown up and kinda sparkly, Anna reenters their lives when her business ("she's analyzing synergies, or synergizing analogies...") brings her back to New York. And suddenly, the "cloth" that both men wear, fits a little too snugly for comfort.

The Upshot: I have to be careful not to gush here, lest I go into every single, specific detail of what I liked about this movie. And there are many things, not the least of which is the fact that though there's nothing particularly "new" in this movie--boy and boy meet girl; boy and boy fall for girl; girl move away; girl come back; boy and boy vie for her attention--the *way* it was told, and the sincerity with which it came across, was very refreshing. And as jaded as I've been lately due to this pretty dreadful movie season, that's saying a lot.

When wearing his director's hat, Edward Norton brings a fresh view to the screen that's been missing for quite some time now. Maybe in knowing that he was directing, I paid more attention than I normally would; but for a first-time feature film director (I think), he did an amazing job of getting good camera shots, without going overboard as far too many pretentious artistes do these days. I especially liked his shots in and around the bar (uh, no pun intended); for some reason, they stood out as being different from anything that I've seen in a mainstream film recently. Perhaps it's because even though the barroom banter was funny, it wasn't forced humor--and even further, because it felt intimate in a way, instead of in-your-face. We've all heard the cliches about bartender-as-confessor; Norton somehow avoided the cliche and achieved a genuine sense of that reality, without making the humor maudlin. Scenes like this exist throughout the movie; you get the feeling that there's a real and important story being told, rather than a mass of images moving swiftly to a conclusion.

But as enjoyable as Director Norton's work was to me, Actor Norton's performance as Father Brian Finn was even more fun to watch. Whether with Jenna Elfman (with whom he had this incredible chemistry; Anna and Brian's relationship was much more convincing than was hers with Jake), Ben Stiller, or especially the great rapport he had with the "minor" supporting characters like the Bartender (Brian George) and Karioke Tong (Ken Leung), Norton's skill as an actor made me easily forget that this was the same man who played a skinhead in AMERICAN HISTORY X and an airhead in FIGHT CLUB. It is a compliment to his abilities that the "priest on fire" scene that I've seen in the "Faith" trailer multiple times, was no less funny when I saw it in context of the movie; in fact, I think I laughed even harder than I did when I first saw it. Norton is truly an underrated actor; and since the Academy is notoriously short-sighted when it comes to recognizing comedies at the podium, chances are that he'll remain unrewarded for his work here, too.

As I alluded to above, Elfman's best work was with Norton; leaving no traces of her flower child Dharma character (from the DHARMA AND GREG TV series), she impressed me most when she was dealing with Brian's "crisis of faith". But to my pleasant surprise, I enjoyed Stiller's performance almost as much as I did Norton's, especially in their interactions together. Ben Stiller is generally an acquired taste, one which I haven't picked up to date. But in "Faith", he seemed less concerned about being "raw and edgy" than he has been in past performances (like his roles in MYSTERY MEN and BLACK AND WHITE, for instance). Here, Stiller seems to sense the importance of his rabbi character's sincerity about his "flock", coming across, and it shows in his performance. This is not to say that the good rabbi was all serious; as with Norton's trailer scenes, the previews with Stiller and "Workout Chick" (Lisa Eldestein) held up, if less so. What really made me sit up and take notice, though, is that Stiller didn't allow his comedy bits to overshadow the overall character and Jake's struggles with being a needful human on the one hand, and feeling obligated to serve his congregation in the way he thought they needed him most, on the other. More than at any other time I've watched Stiller, I Felt his character--and liked him.

Just as I said to myself, "there's nothing about this movie I don't like!" near the end of the flick, it started to slow down to almost a crawl. I was appreciative of that break, though; if I had been completely in love with this movie, I think I would've questioned my own sanity. The flaws in it made me appreciate it all the more, from the efforts of the main cast, to the importance of the "minor" characters (that Bartender had me in absolute stitches, as did Tong), to the curiousness I've developed about Judaism, since I didn't understand a great deal what was going on with that aspect of the story. If I may allow myself a single cliche--even at its worst, it was better than most.

The "Black Factor" [ObDisclaimer: We Are Not A Monolith]: Actually, let's dish on "The Church Factor" today.

As the daughter of a fiery Baptist mother, I connected to this flick on so many levels, especially when the rabbi and the priest attempted to get their respective members to participate more in the services. The most obvious connection came when Jake brought the Black choir in to the synagogue, to liven up the services. I was immediately taken back to the time when I was the drummer for a campus choir, and we stepped out of our ordinary performance rotation of Black Baptist and Pentacostal churches, by going to a White Presbyterian church, at their request. The experience was definitely memorable. Though the scene was played for laughs on-screen, I have a feeling Jake's bunch had as good a time as we all did. The church scenes also reminded me of the time when my holy-ghost-shoutin'/already-been-baptized mother went to a service at the Catholic church she would sometimes allow me to go to; remind me to tell you about it one day, but needless to say, St. Cecilia's was never quite the same after mama was in tha' house...

But beyond those connections, I related easily to Jake and Brian's message itself, that of trying to reach their members on a personal level: not through the recanting of years and years of traditional rites, but by appealing to their sense of community. I'm probably telling on myself when I say that I've missed that aspect of my life most in my transition from being a member of a tight-knit community when I was growing up, to the supposedly sophisticated semi-suburban dweller that I am today. Characters in a movie though they may be, I could dig being a member of either of the God Squad's congregations.

    Thus endeth the sermon.

Bammer's Bottom Line: Hallelujah! Finally, an unadulterated, unequivocally good movie in the year 2000. Easily the best comedy so far this year, and a strong contender for best movie of this third of the year, period.

KEEPING THE FAITH (rating: greenlight): I'd say "Bless me, Father, for I have laughed", but I hate cliches.

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    Rose "Bams" Cooper                                   /','\
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