But this film takes bad taste where few Jewish-themed movies have gone before. It suggests that the traditions and infractions, the religious institutions and the instances of bad taste, are interesting only to the extent that they get Jews to act up and to act out—a people chosen, as it were, to let out their emotions, whether fleeting or lingering, in order to show others how to relieve sadness and resentments in the most capricious ways. Filmmaker Nate Silver and writing partner C. Marion Wells may well have outdone David E. Kelley, whose selected Jewish characters behaved similarly on TV series Chicago Hope and Picket Fences.
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