Jewtopia Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

Jewtopia Blu-ray Movie Review

You don't have to be Jewish to wish that 'Jewtopia' had been a lot funnier.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 29, 2014

I’ve spent most of my life walking a fairly precarious tightrope between two disparate sides of my family. While Jewtopia has a brief set of jokes dealing with so called “interfaith marriages”, back in The Dark Ages when I was born, when a Jew married a Christian, it was called a “mixed marriage”, and I am the progeny of such a union. I’ve therefore had to learn to assimilate into two vastly different cultures. My Jewish relatives were all ultra-liberal Manhattanites (to the point that two of them were actual members of the Communist Party), very intellectual and both politically and socially in the “activist” class. My Christian relatives were more salt of the earth, Midwestern types, typically quite conservative and not nearly so intellectually curious (which is not to imply they were in any way less than intelligent). This bifurcated upbringing gives me a perhaps unusual perspective on Jewtopia, which is based on a long running off-Broadway hit about two childhood friends—one Jewish, one Christian (who’s actually named Christian)—who reunite as adults when the Christian guy wants to date a Jewish girl who thinks he’s Jewish. Christian O'Connell (Ivan Sergei) therefore seeks out Jewish Adam Lipschitz (Joel David Moore) for so-called “Jew lessons” in an attempt to pass as a “member of the tribe”. This is an appealing enough setup, and the film delivers a few hearty laughs along the way, but it more often than not plays like one of those extended Saturday Night Live skits that goes on a bit (or perhaps more than a bit) too long. The film has something to offend just about everyone, being intentionally built out of various objectionable stereotypes, but there are a few nuggets of humor to be found for those who decide to walk their own precarious tightrope in viewing this frankly pretty juvenile undertaking.

We first meet Chris (as he’s nicknamed) and Adam as kids, when Chris, who’s an Army brat, moves to Adam’s school district as part of his father’s peripatetic lifestyle. There are a couple of amusing vignettes as the two new buddies check out each other’s family lives. The Lipschitzes go to a Chinese restaurant (you expected anything less?), where Chris is amazed by Mrs. Lipschitz’s (Rita Wilson) total control of everyone, including Mr. Lipschitz (Jon Lovitz). Adam, on the other hand, is almost terrified by the O’Connell clan, which includes an imperious father (Peter Stormare) and a somewhat vixen-ish wife (Nicolette Sheridan). We quickly come to understand how neurotic Adam is, especially when he freaks out during his Bar Mitzvah and disrobes, running more or less naked through the temple. After this escapade and a badly planned middle of the night attack which goes seriously haywire and which causes Adam to have yet another panic attack, the O’Connells move once again and the two boys lose touch with each other.

The film then focuses on a college aged Chris, who falls seriously in love with a Jewish girl named Rebecca Ogin (Crystal Reed). Chris, who is not exactly the ambitious type, loves the fact that Rebecca controls every aspect of his life (much as Mrs. Lipschitz did with her family), and as the two get ready to graduate, he pops the question to her. He’s more than stunned when she brushes him off, indicating they’ve had a lot of fun, but that she could never marry a non-Jew.

We then segue to Adam as an adult, working for his family’s embroidery business. Adam is also about to marry a (guess what—completely controlling) young Jewish woman named Hannah Daniels, who comes from a family of gynecologists. Some of the so-called “humor” in this segment deals with Adam attending a brunch at the Daniels’ palatial manse, where her parents, Bruce (Tom Arnold) and Eileen (Camryn Manheim), discuss various afflictions of the female genitalia in order to school their daughter in the “family trade”. Hannah is just as obsessed with making a baby (even though she’s not married yet), and is also having an insanely convoluted nursery-safe room constructed at the house she shares with Adam.

Meanwhile, Chris’ life is not going very well, since he’s still incredibly hung up on having been dumped by Rebecca so many years earlier. When he spies a sign advertising a singles mixer for Jews, he decides on a whim to go. He shows up in Nascar emblazoned apparel, and, in introducing himself to various Jewish girls, enthusiastically yells out, “Hi! I’m Christian!” Needless to say, he’s more or less shunned, at least until he leaves the mixer and runs into Alison Marks (Jennifer Love Hewitt), who thinks his getup is a put on and is instantly attracted to him. Chris, suddenly realizing it’s his goyische background which is standing in his way, invents the name of Avi Rosenberg when he introduces himself to Alison.

By the sort of chance that only ever occurs in comedies like this, Chris catches a commercial for Adam’s embroidery business on television, and calls up his old friend (didn’t he realize they lived in the same town—especially since it seems like Adam’s family never moved in the first place?). He asks Adam for “Jew lessons” in order to fake being Jewish so that he can properly woo Alison. That provides a few laughs as the film trundles along, with a simultaneously unfold plot of Adam’s increasing hysteria as he approaches his wedding day providing further fodder for a giggle or two.

Jewtopia has some fitfully amusing bits sprinkled throughout its running time, and some appealing enough performances (Wendie Malick is cartoonishly fun as Alison’s harridan mother), but this is often a pretty tired enterprise that derives most of its humor from exploiting fairly silly and cliché ridden stereotypes. This sort of satire probably plays better on stage than in the “up close and personal” world of cinema, where the outsized shenanigans of the various families often smack of desperation. With such potential in the setup and such a game cast, Jewtopia should have reached the Holy Land of comedy; instead it pretty much just wanders around in the desert for an hour and half.

Jewtopia Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Jewtopia is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. While this high definition presentation is generally sharp and well detailed, there's no real pop here, and a couple of sequences suffer from inconsistent contrast (the worst of these being a nightclub scene where Chris utters a denigrating Yiddish word for an African American in order to "impress" Alison). Colors generally look accurate and are decently saturated, though occasionally things seem a bit on the pallid side (see screenshot 5, where flesh tones seem a little washed out).

Jewtopia Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Jewtopia features a perfectly serviceable if not overly immersive lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that presents the film's dialogue very cleanly and clearly, while not really offering substantial surround activity save for a couple of sequences like the mixer where Chris meets Alison. Fidelity is just fine throughout the track and there are no issues to report.

Jewtopia Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (1080p; 2:29)

Jewtopia Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I had heard a lot about Jewtopia's stage incarnations from various friends and family members through the years, and (especially seeing the cast assembled for the film version) had really high hopes for this outing. There are admittedly a few scattered laughs to be had here, but not enough, and certainly nowhere near the amount one might expect from such fertile territory. The cast is extremely winning and watchable, but my hunch is few are going to really warm up to this film, as it is built so relentlessly out of ridiculous stereotypes there's little heart or humanity beneath the often juvenile humor. Co-creator and director Bryan Fogel wrote a coffee table book based on Jewtopia which bore the soubriquet The Chosen Guide for the Chosen People. Chances are most audiences are going to want to choose other people to get their fill of Jewish humor.