As the film unfolds, we learn that the force which drove Leonard off the pier, ironically and tragically, is rooted in the good life his Holocaust-surviving parents have worked so hard to tee up for him. He lives with them now in film time because he’s recovering after “hurting himself” (there are puncture wound scars on his forearms) after his fiancee ended their relationship.
Ruth, Leonard’s mother (the ever classy Isabella Rossellini), is the archetypal Jewish mom: a hygiene queen, totally devoted to her son but also compulsively nosey. She’s the kind of gal who gets down on her knees to look under Leonard’s door to see what he’s up to at night, just for his own good. Reuben, his father (Moni Moshonov), is a gentle, sweet natured man who gently and sweetly wheedles Leonard every day to come into the family business and finally make something of himself.
Leonard loves his parents and is nice enough to gently deflect their ceaseless meddling in his affairs rather than tell them to take a hike. But, to be fair, he doesn’t take it upon himself to take a hike either. His truth is that he doesn’t want to be where he is but doesn’t know where else to go. He is an eternal stranger in lands that are all too familiar.
And so the stage is set for this suicidal but reasonably nice Jewish boy from Brighton to meet Sandra (Vinessa Shaw), a nice Jewish girl from the ‘hood. She’s pleasing enough to the eye but doesn’t turn him on. Still, here’s a woman of child-bearing age from a well-off family who is attracted to him and, perhaps more importantly, is not his mother. Unfortunately, she is also officially pre-approved by his parents and this automatically fogs the window of any real feelings Leonard might have for her.
Enter salvation: a silky blond shiksa named Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), who just happens to live almost next door. Unfussy, easy going, non-judgmental, Michelle is the perfect antidote for the over-determined, hot house world of Jewish material world ambition. She’s the moral equivalent of olam ha ba, the promised messianic world where Jews finally get to kick back and enjoy themselves like everyone else.
Poor love starved Leonard dives into the promise of happily ever after with Michelle in the same way he jumped over the side of the pier, a lost soul seeking wholeness through losing the pieces of himself that don‘t play nicely together. But Michelle thinks of him as a brother, not a lover, and she clings to her love for Ron (Elias Koteas), a married man who doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave his wife for Michelle.
Suffice it to say that the plot works itself out with some bright spots along the way. Paltrow plays Michelle with remarkable sensual ease, beautiful inside and out, as they say.She’s fun to watch, and I think that will hold up even for non-Jewish men and women.
Phoenix’s best scene is with Michelle at a crowded dance club. While she gyrates obliviously, arms raised above her head, he buries his face in her hair, inhaling her with an animal intensity right up there with Brando’s “Stella” from A Streetcar named Desire.Truly great acting.
Films like Marty, Rebel Without a Cause and Lost in Yonkers, among many others, reenact the struggles of sons or daughters to get free of the rules and regs of well-meaning but over-protective parents. Some, like The Graduate, do it with wit, others, like The Chosen, do it with soul. This film, written and directed by James Gray (We Own the Night, Little Odessa), does it with leftovers, making little new of old hash.
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