By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – The movie 31 Candles stars Jonah Feingold as 30-year-old Leo Kadner, who is short and dyslexic, and the woman of his romantic fantasies, Eva Shapiro (Sarah Coffey), who at 6’ 1 ½ is too tall for most male partners as well as for the roles she seeks on Broadway.
When they were both adolescents, Leo and Eva attended Darby Lake Camp together, a sleep-away camp under Jewish community auspices. One year he was taller than she; the next year, having experienced a growth spurt, she was taller than he.
He remembered her by both her names, “Eva Shapiro,” an object for veneration—as one might recall the names of Abe Lincoln or George Washington, but most certainly not as Abe nor George. When they meet again as adults in New York City, she is actress aspiring for a part in any Broadway production, and he, although Jewish, is the director of sparkly Christmas movies shown on a Christmas Channel during television’s lead up to the holiday,
In other words, they are both frustrated entertainment-industry types.
When not answering audition call after audition call, Eva supports herself as a bar/bat mitzvah tutor, and that gives Leo an idea. Never having had a bar mitzvah as a 13-year-old, he will have one on his 31st birthday. He engages Eva Shapiro to be his tutor. That way, he’ll be sure to spend a lot of time with her, and then, who knows?
Meanwhile, Leo continues to bed Molly (Djouliet Amara), who desires only a friends-with benefits relationship; has a fling with Eva’s sister Jensie (Noa Fisher); banters with his friends Luca (Joey Dardano) and Maria (Lauren Servideo); confides in convenience store owner Jaya (Lori Tan Shan); and seeks the advice of his worldly grandmother Lila (Caroline Aaron).
All this is juxtaposed with Eva teaching Torah to him and to a pair of twelve-year-olds, James (Derick Delgado) and Sally (Zoe Hoffman), whom he takes into his confidence with humorous interactions.
The bar mitzvah ceremony is officiated by a self-deprecating Rabbi Zeldin (Judy Gold) and temporarily brings together Leo’s divorced parents Mark (Seth Baron) and Susan (Jackie Sandler). Talia Suskauer plays his sister Millie, who always is in his corner.
The independent production has the feeling of a Hallmark made-for-television movie, except for the surprise ending and the lack of Hallmark’s rom-com trademark, an interrupted kiss. Cinematography in New York’s Central Park is notable.
Religious viewers of the Abrahamic faiths will wince at Leo’s incorrect, but humorous references to events in the lives of biblical matriarchs and patriarchs. Jews may admire Sarah’s chanting in Hebrew as well as auditioning for Broadway with a song that Irving Berlin made popular in 1920, “After You Get What You Want, You Don’t Want It.”
Although Leo’s bar mitzvah studies were a pretense, in the end, they contribute to his maturing as a person.
It’s noteworthy, especially for a person who is dyslexic, that 31 is 13 backwards.
31 Candles opens in select theatres Nov. 7 in New York City and Dec. 5 in Los Angeles.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.
Don, I hope you are doing well. I enjoyed the brief time we spent together on the high seas. We are still sailing – a somewhat abbreviated schedule but still hanging in there. All the best to you and yours.