via /Film
If you are in the Jewish community and haven't heard of Holy Rollers, a indie film that's been making the film festival circuit rounds for a while now, consider this advance warning of a topic of conversation that will soon pop up in the religious community especially in families with teenagers and recent college graduates without a job. Why you ask? Because parents see things in realistic looking movies and on the evening news and think how does this apply to my life even if its the farthest thing from the truth and worry that it might be happening right under their nose.
So what will parents worry about with Holy Rollers? One is that it might shine a bad light on possibly the Jewish faith. This happens with any movie that might have give a negative impression of Jews in general especially in movies. There was the interracial love of Renee Zwelleger in A Price Above Rubies, Melanie Griffith as an undercover cop in the Hasidic Community in Sidney Lumet's A Stranger Among Us, and the perceived portrayal of Jews in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Don't forget Trembling Before G-d, the 2006 controversial documentary about Hasidic homosexuals.
Melanie Griffith in A Stranger Among Us (via Seraphic Secret)
In Holy Rollers, Jesse Eisenberg (Zombieland, Adventureland, The Squid & The Whale) plays a young Jewish Hasidic man who becomes involves in drugs, primarily as a drug mule. Some parents might be proud at the prospect of their child becoming entrepreneurial but I see this a small segment of the child rearing population.
A trailer will do the plot better justice and will be more enjoyable. That's why they make them or to throw you of the scent of a bad movie which I don't believe is the case here.
Holy Rollers comes out in limited release next Friday May 21 (AKA Shabbat) in select cities, but I'm gonna guess one of those select cities will be the New York metropolitan area. While you won't here shouts on TV of protest, you'll hear whispers and rumblings to not support this kind of film, see it, or even acknowledge its existence.
The film, according to various articles, is inspired by actual events and I can tell you that from personal experience and knowledge that kids who need money with a bit on entrepreneurial spirit that hang out with kids flush with disposable income and too much time on their hands will ultimate fill that time and take that money if led down this path. Drugs are a quick way to make quick cash and it is very unlikely that Jewish youngsters will be pulled over for a drug stop based on racial profiling like some of other races.
I have not seen the film but I will definitely will, which isn't a stretch because I usually see any movie that might even mildly interests me and some that don't (Side note: If you are looking for a dark comedy about the hyper consumer culture, check out The Joneses, a film currently out in theaters starring David Duchovny & Demi Moore. Yes it does sound like a B movie from the cast by the premise is an A with B+ execution).
On the lighter side, one of the film's costars Rapper Q-Tip wants to "enjoy Sabbath" according to the NY Daily News:
"I'm going to enjoy Sabbath on Saturday, so on Friday at sunset I'm going to turn off my TV, my radio - I'm not going to do anything," says the rapper, who plays an Ecstasy dealer in a Hasidic community in the flick. 'And then when the sun sets on Saturday night, I'm going to raise hell!"In this modern world, we could all use a respite, which is why many covet there time where the modern world kind of disappears on a weekly basis.
So Holy Rollers, what do you think? Did you see it? Will you see it?
Related Links:
Rolling with not so holy Chasidim (Jewish Journal)
Blog Post on A Stranger Among Us by Robert Avrech, Jewish Screenwriter (Seraphic Secret)
Holy Rollers Official Site
Holy Rollers on Rotten Tomatoes
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