A wobbly oddball comedy

 

 After the death of his alcoholic wife, Ben Gotlieb slid into an extended funk. He could no longer sing, a major liability for a small-town cantor who chants  prayers at the synagogue that employs him. 

  As if to deepen his sense of ineptitude, Ben — the central character in the offbeat comedy Between the Temples  — has taken up residence with his biological mother and her wife, a duo that tries to manipulate him out of his grief.

   As Ben, Jason Schwartzman creates a character who had ceased being at home in the world -- if he ever was. Ben doesn't seem interested in escaping his grief-stricken wallow, giving Between the Temples a sad-sack quality that can be both drab and amusing, occasionally both at the same time.

   The screenplay contrives to penetrate Ben's hopelessness by introducing him to a character who embodies life at its messiest. Ben’s former elementary school music teacher, the widowed Carla (Carol Kane) asks Ben to prepare her for the bat mitzvah she never had.

     We also suspect she wants to reconnect Ben with the lively, talented elementary school kid she once called "Little Benny."

    Director Nathan Silver, who co-wrote the screenplay with C. Mason Wells, mostly confines Between the Temples to Jewish life in a small New York town. 

     When not focusing on Ben and Carla, Silver brings in supporting characters that include Ben’s rabbi and boss (Robert Smigel) and, eventually, by the rabbi’s daughter Gabby (Madeline Weinstein). The rabbi hopes that his daughter, who he says has problems, might help Ben jumpstart his life -- and provide Gabby with a husband.

   Dolly De Leon and Caroline Aaron play Ben’s Jewish mothers, women whose lives center on Ben, work, and the synagogue, where they participate in fund-raising efforts.

    Initially, Ben resists becoming Carla's teacher, but she’s insistent, candid, and charming in a scattered way that Kane enhances with a welcome touch of uncertainty about herself.

     So how far will this relationship go? Carla, after all, has a son (Matthew Shear) who might be close to Ben’s age. Besides, Ben shows few signs that he can handle any sort of relationship, much less one involving a major age gap.

     Between the Temples lopes toward an ending that culminates with a Shabbat dinner scene that strains to hit the right notes. So, at times, does the rest of the movie.

      I wondered whether Silver wanted his film to feel both eccentric and ordinary, an attempt at capturing the weirdness and contradictions of ordinary life.

      Well and good, and Kane’s presence proves refreshing. But I felt the same way about the movie as I felt about Ben. Like him, it needed to find some spark.