Forget the mayhem: Go to a movie

Published in the Jewish Chronicle, 14 April 2006

There are no quiet times in the Jewish world, and these last few weeks have proved the point in spades. There's been an election in Israel, with a hesitant, but welcome outcome - a narrow majority in favour of further territorial withdrawals and a sound beating for the Greater Israel camp. We've had another episode in the ongoing Ken saga, with the Mayor of London telling two Jewish property developers to "go back to Iran" (even though they're from India): a dizzying return to the Alf Garnett street politics of the 1970s, when "go back where you came from" was the insult of first resort hurled at anyone vaguely "foreign." And we've had two top US academics write a lengthy paper, republished by the London Review of Books, insisting that it's the Israel Lobby (endowed with a capital L by the LRB) that really pulls the strings in Washington, even dragging the Bush administration into war on Iraq - a tale of a poor little superpower bullied by the Wales-sized behemoth that is the Jewish state.

So no shortage of action, no shortage of meaty topics for a JC columnist to chew on. And yet I don't feel like it. Maybe it's because Pesach is upon us and I'm looking forward to the deep sleep that follows a really good seder, or maybe it's because of the speed and intensity of the battles we Jews seem obliged to fight at the moment, one after another, but somehow I feel tired. I find myself sensing a diaspora equivalent of the sentiment Israel's new prime minister, Ehud Olmert, voiced so arrestingly in New York last year: "We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies."

He was speaking about Israel and the waging of real, physical conflicts. But even far away, it's possible to share his sense of weariness. Which is why I've decided to give you - and me - a break. We're going to talk about something fun: Prime, a new film starring Uma Thurman as a 37 year old woman who dates a 23 year old man. So far, so rom-com. The twist is that Uma is not Jewish but her young beau is. What's more, he's the son of her therapist (played by Meryl Streep).

I confess that I had low expectations for this movie, and not only because romantic comedies specialise in predictability. I also had a specific worry about the storyline. As anyone who saw James Spader in White Palace, or Ben Stiller in both Keeping the Faith and Along Came Polly, can testify, Hollywood has a very clear line on relationships between Jewish men and non-Jewish women: it can't get enough of them.

That's not because it has an enlightened approach to mixed couples, which would be fine, but because it has a marked antagonism to Jewish women. In White Palace, our hero is escaping the clutches of the pushy "Heidi Solomon". In the Stiller movies, the Jewish women are shown, variously, as demanding, humourless control freaks, pushed towards single men by a monstrous regiment of mothers. The Irish Catholic or Wasp heroines are, by contrast, calm, serene and blonde. No wonder, sighs the audience, James or Ben are rushing into their arms: who wouldn't?

The emotional logic powering these films is always the same. Those who marry within their tradition are playing safe; those who dare find a partner outside are pursuing their dreams, fully realising their potential. I strongly suspect that behind these movies stand a group of male Jewish executives who have made the latter choice in their own lives, and like seeing it reflected positively on screen.

So I assumed the worst of Prime. But I was in for a surprise. For one thing, it's blonde Uma whose head is bursting with neuroses, not some Jewish female caricature. Second, the Jews in the film are depicted warmly. It's true that young David Bloomberg lives with his grandparents, so that when he tiptoes in with Uma at 3am a voice instantly calls out from behind the bedroom door: "Did you eat?" True, too that when his parents are presented with a bottle of red wine, they put it in the fridge - so unfamiliar are these Jews with the protocol of alcohol. But mainly the Bloombergs are shown as a loving family, one that Uma admires for a warmth missing from her own upbringing. And the film elegantly avoids making a judgement on the merits or otherwise of mixed relationships.

I watched Prime on the plane back from Israel, after four intense days covering the election. It made a welcome break - and right now we could all do with one of those. Chag sameach.

Posted on April 14, 2006 11:28 AM