Peddlers of Ecstasy
[Film Review]
Holy Rollers (2010)
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Bartha
Director: Kevin Asch
Imagine a film about American football in which players use not the familiar oval-ish pigskin but the black and white pentagon-patterned soccer ball. Or a film about American Indians in which the characters wear Muslim headdresses. Or a film about American senators wearing togas à la the ancient Romans. That’s what it feels like to watch “Holy Rollers,” a film about supposedly-Hasidic teenagers smuggling ecstasy from Amsterdam to New York, except that these kids seem nothing like Hasidim. The garb and the mannerisms are so skewed towards caricature that they seem lifted – sloppily, unimaginatively – from other film depictions of Orthodox Jews. The dialogue is peppered with pseudo-Yiddishisms that seems inspired by someone’s vague recollection of their secular Yiddish-speaking grandparents.
The film’s producers acknowledged that they created their own reality in depicting Hasidic life. To Hasidim, that is frustrating to hear, offensive even. One would think that in a place like New York – where much of “Holy Rollers” was filmed – a film producer would find a Hasid or two to consult with, except the producers of this film couldn’t seem to be bothered.
There are times, it should be said, when an accurate portrayal of a film’s cultural setting is not of overriding importance. Accuracies are only relevant to the degree that they matter to the story. If the audience has never seen a real-life American football game, then the shape of the ball may not matter. Similarly, if the audience doesn’t know or care if a Hasidic mother would ever call her son “Sam’eleh” (she wouldn’t; he wouldn’t be named “Sam” to begin with), or whether otherwise English-speaking Hasidim really replace the word money with gelt as if it were some sacred word (they don’t), or if Hasidim really use the phrase “Baruch Hashem” in place of hello, goodbye, and how are you? (they don’t, although it may seem like they do) then, well, one can’t blame the filmmaker for not caring either. A filmmaker has a single overarching task: to entertain viewers for the length of the film, to make them laugh, cry, or simply intrigued enough to keep watching. It is precisely there that “Holy Rollers” fails.
If this were a film about, say, a group of preppy New England college kids, the story would be an entirely different one. The story is about Hasidim because, ostensibly, the Hasidic lifestyle matters to the story. Sam (Jesse Eisenberg), a young Hasid on the verge of getting engaged (there’s the obligatory b’show scene, of course, where Sam and his prospective bride discuss whether to have five children or eight), is persuaded by an elder cousin to work for Jackie, a local kingpin-wannabe, in the drug smuggling business. “You’ll be bringing medicine for rich people,” Sam’s cousin tells him. Eventually, Sam learns the truth about the contents of his suitcases, but by then, seduced by opportunities for easy money, he finds himself torn between the life he stumbled upon and the one he left behind. On the one hand there are parties, girls, money, and good times. On the other there is faith, tradition, family, and community. The problem is that, as far as the audience is concerned, the dilemma doesn’t seem all that complicated, and its solution seems a no-brainer. Essentially, Sam has to choose between, say: a) an awkward meeting with a strange girl at the other end of the sofa, versus b) a life of hot girls throwing their svelte bodies and luscious lips at him with abandon. Or he has to choose between: a) life as a schoolteacher for religious boys, or b) all-expense-paid trips to Amsterdam. I know which of these I would choose.
What we don’t see are some of the real reasons a Hasid would give up all that fun for a dull and constricting life in Hasidic Borough Park. We are meant to believe that Sam has some sort of emotional attachment to his religious and cultural lifestyle, and that it presents a compelling alternative to Sam’s new life. But we seen nothing of it. To heighten the illusion of conflict, the movie gives us a rabbi whose sermons sound vaguely Talmudic but nothing like that of a real-life Hasidic rabbi. Besides, listening to his monotonous droning of religious banalities is almost painful. Granted, not every Hasidic rabbi is an accomplished orator. But neither is he credited with captivating restless teenagers who are ambivalent about their traditions.
I don’t know if the movie’s creators knew any Hasidim personally. More likely, they knew people who knew people who have some vague familiarity with Orthodox Jews. But that would hardly suffice. Hasidic characteristics that are visible to the outside world – weird accents and funny hats and an occasional spotlight in the media – are not those that truly set them apart.
What outsiders often fail to understand is that the Hasidic world isn’t for the most part a spiritually compelling one – at least not to the average young Hasid. It isn’t strictly his faith or his traditions that keep him loyal but a fully encapsulated universe, a universe in which the mundane is as profoundly captivating as the ideological. The young Hasid is as concerned with the size and style of his shtreimel, the quality and respectability of his shidduch, his first car purchase, and future real-estate deals as he is with religious values. He takes more immediate pleasure in the cholent and kugel at the Shabbos morning kiddush than in the Shabbos morning services. A Hasid in twenty-first century Brooklyn doesn’t live the Hasidic lifestyle because it’s the right thing to do; he lives it – for the most part – because his attachment to it is so deep in so many complex ways that the idea of leaving it behind seems more trouble than it’s worth. It is that attachment that we fail to see in “Holy Rollers,” and it is why, ultimately, the film delivers little by way of emotional impact.
I believe that accuracy in film is important. Many of us would feel let down if we discovered that “The Sopranos” veers wildly from real-life mafia culture. Or if a period piece of Victorian England got the costumes horribly wrong. Sure, not too many people would know the difference, but we’d feel cheated if we were among those who did. Ultimately, though, accuracy isn’t an overarching concern to the viewer. “Fiddler on the Roof” delights us even if we suspect it doesn’t faithfully depict turn-of-the-twentieth-century life in a Russian shtetl. “Gladiator” captivates us even if Romans didn’t speak British-accented English. “Analyze This” makes us laugh even when we know that Robert De Niro’s buffoonish Paul Vitti resembles no real-life no mafia don. But when accuracy is central to a film’s purpose – and by accuracy I mean not the hats or the accents but the real contours of a Hasid’s attachment to his world – then that accuracy can’t be dispensed with. If it is, it doesn’t only disappoint Hasidim, it disappoints all viewers, and the result is, simply put, a bad film.
Printable Version
Excellent, thorough review. I remember watching a Bollywood Jane Austen film in an Austen class. The one Hindu student from India became enflamed at the inaccurate portrayal of Indian life. It didn’t matter that the film was supposed to be funny. He was irate that viewers would get an untrue picture.
Analagously, I just read a review of *Cairo Time* (a beauty of a film, btw). The reviewer was an Egyptian and bemoaned the inaccurate portrayal of Egyptian characters.
I, with my non-insider lack of knowledge of either Hindi or Egyptian life, took the portrayals at face value. If not for the dissenters, I would have believed that what I’d seen in the films was representative of those cultures. And that’s how erroneous stereotypes are perpetuated.
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This issue reminds me of the debate that raged about “A Stranger among Us”. In the end, most movies with a strong “ethnic/cultural theme” wind up being an amalgam of various sub-groups and individuals.
Maybe most Hassidim do not say Baruch Hashem instead of hello, but among the Lubavitch Hassidim in Mtl that I have been with, often they do. Do many Hassidim boys smuggle drugs? Probably not, but some may. The point is that movies and their characters are to a certain degree, caricatures of reality.
Movies are not ethnographic documentaries, they are Entertainment.
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beautiful review!
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Great review!
For me, accuracy in media is not an attribute or value. It’s an absolute necessity.
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Laura, AMY, HT — Thanks!
K. Lachapelle — A couple things:
a) All Chasidim say Baruch Hashem, not just Lubavitchers. (In fact, pretty much all Orthodox Jews use it, to varying degrees.) My issue wasn’t that it was used in the film; my issue was that the filmmakers seemed entirely unaware of its appropriate usage.
It may not seem like much, but the effect is comical and betrays the filmmakers’ laziness.
b) Yes, it’s tough to make an “ethnic/cultural” film. But to be sloppy about it is disrespectful and offensive.
I believe a filmmaker has certain responsibilities when recreating a real-life community. If I were to make a film that is ostensibly about the Amish, but proceed to create a world that no Amish would recognize, that would be sloppy film-making, and if I were Amish I’d be insulted. Of course, considering how few Amish watch movies, and how most others wouldn’t know any better, it’d be tempting to be lazy about it. But I’m not sure that’s a good enough excuse.
c) Ultimately, you are correct: a movie is not a documentary, it is entertainment — and that’s where “Holy Rollers” fails. It simply doesn’t succeed in setting up its dramatic components successfully, and I believe it has a lot to do with the film-makers ignorance of the world they tried to portray.
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I have watched it on Opening Night and had an opportunity to speak with some of the actors (the one playing the rabbi – forgot his name – was sure there). They (the producers) claimed that they did have a Hasid consultant “and they even went to a dialect coach.” I kept telling them that I could not see how it was depicting frum people. They barely resembled them. It was too obvious to me, as an ex-frum person myself; and if I were to see them in real life I’d spot them as fakers.
the rabbi-actor said that he picked that style from watching some videos of “Reb Menachem Mendel” (the Lubavitcher Rebbe, as I understood it).
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Pinny — Interesting you mention it. That rabbi was the most god-awful character in the movie. It was obvious he was trying to imitate someone, but whoever it was, he did a mighty bad job.
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The Lubavticher Rebbe was a pretty bad orator. He spoke in a monotone.
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I’m pretty sure that hardly any movies that portray a specific culture/group depict them with sufficient accuracy to satisfy one who is intimately familiar with that group. Whether being about military culture, corporate culture, religious societies, geek culture, cop culture, the medical/hospital life, inner city life, etc. they hardly ever get it right, but because most of us aren’t part of those worlds, the inaccuracies rarely bother us. It’s only when we witness a depiction of OUR world that we get all annoyed and disappointed, which is how I felt after watching The Social Network, and how it portrayed programmers and geeks (coincidentally, also starring Jesse Eisenberg).
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Hedyot, I don’t believe that’s true. Both the West Wing and The Wire, to name two shows about specific environments, were praised for their accuracy.
Of course, it may not be possible to get it perfect. But there should at least be a visible effort. There are sometimes levels of inaccuracy that I don’t think are excusable.
The more I think about it, the more I feel that “Holy Rollers” cannot justifiably claim to be about Chasidim. Orthodox Jews, yes. But to be about Chasidim it needs to be much more distinctive. But of course, needed it to be about Chasidim for marketing purposes. “Orthodox Jewish drug smugglers” just isn’t as catchy.
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And BTW, The Social Network is a really bad example of this. Programmers aren’t a cultural community. Accuracy in that case is far more technical, and less relevant to the story.
And it just so happens that I thought they showed the programming aspects just fine. I mean, what’d they show already, a couple of quick shots of Eisenberg typing PHP and HTML? How inaccurate can you get already?
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Hedyot, *My Father, My Lord* depicts the yeshivish/chassidish community accurately. Of course it helps that the filmmaker is an ex-chussid.
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Of all the about the orthodox community I think “My Father My Lord” is the best and the only good one.
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You should watch The Yankles, it’s even worse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1tDYp7SKBc
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HR: The Social Network isn’t that far from the truth as you may think. I used to be around guys like that.
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It is an interesting topic: the perception outsiders have of chasidim. Then again, would we notice these differences if we were studying tribes in Africa?
People in Israel often tell me that charedim in America go to university and become doctors, lawyers, scientists etc. I wonder who they are talking about?
Are charedim in America really so much more educated?
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Meshugene: about Israeli perception of American Jews.
first, i believe it starts from the fact that here it’s more acceptable to work and/or go to university than in Israel (emphasis on “more”).
second, I believe they refer to YU and the likes (Touro?). You might name some Israeli equivalencies. but aren’t as legitimized in the Charedi community.
sorry for getting a bit off topic…
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The only film that does an expansive job of portraying the innermost crevices of an abstruse culture is Borat on Kahzak life, the rest is all useless.
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Meshugene, the uniform in the Yankles was off, like the long curly peyos dudn’t match the hats they were wearing. But I think that movie was trying to portray Lubavitch. The two brothers producers claimed to have learned in a Lubavitch yeshiva for a few years, and took the cues from there.
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“It isn’t strictly his faith or his traditions that keep him loyal but a fully encapsulated universe, a universe in which the mundane is as profoundly captivating as the ideological.” WOW. You are SUCH a good writer, Rebel, you know that? I hope your wife is daily–hourly!–hitting you over the head, saying, “Wake up, man! Publish! Publish! Publish!” Surely a far-sighted editor could arrange it anonymously…after all, in a modified form, it’s what Salmon Rushdie is doing these days…MORE!–A goyish girl-fan
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