Keeping Up with the Steins Review

Cast: Daryl Sabara, Garry Marshall, Jeremy Piven, Jamie Gertz, Doris Roberts, Daryl Hannah, Richard Benjamin
Director: Scott Marshall
Screenplay: Mark Zakarin
Genre: Comedy
Rated: PG
Running Time: 90 minutes

Synopsis:
Benjamin Fiedler, only child of wealthy couple Adam and Joanne, finds that his life has been taken over by preparations for his upcoming bar mitzvah. His parents are pulling out all the stops to make it the bash of the year, including booking various A-listers and Dodger Stadium as the venue. Benjamin doesn't dare to mention his fear of public speaking and lives with the knowledge that when he gets up to recite in Hebrew he's going to make a fool of himself in front of everyone he knows. Cue the arrival of black sheep Irwin, Adam's estranged hippy father - just in time to set things on a different course.

My verdict:
You can sense a genuine human heart beating in there somewhere, stifled though it is by an overbearing score and a tendency to over-explain, but this film hits all the expected notes in the expected order. Naturally, there are lessons to be learned. Adam (Jeremy Piven) is a successful agent, unable to enjoy life because of bitterness about the past and his need to 'keep up with the Steins' (the Steins are another super rich family hosting a bar mitzvah and they don't learn any lessons at all). Irwin (Garry Marshall) tries to fit in with the family he abandoned years ago and finds that he does have some wisdom to impart after all. Benjamin (Daryl Sabara of 'Spy Kids') must learn to be a man, figuratively at least - questioning his own values and acting independently for the first time. In this he gets help from Irwin and, unexpectedly, from his rabbi (Richard Benjamin). The idea that a child can take control of his or her own destiny by making decisions of real gravity and intellect is a strong theme - and one that is all too rare in movies - but didacticism creeps in here, even as the dramatic possibilities are under-explored.

This is a tale of male bonding and women are only present to cheer from the sidelines or provide an occasional dash of romantic interest - for Benjamin the 12-year-old vixen of Hebrew school (Brittany Robertson), for Irwin a good-looking dope calling herself Sacred Feather (Daryl Hannah, in her umpteenth reprisal - why can only Tarantino see her as anything more?). Jamie Gertz is convincing as Joanne Fiedler but, in the grand tradition of Hollywood 'moms', is so caring and long-suffering that you long for her to start downing martinis and making obscene wisecracks (she does say 'frigging' at one point but that's as far as it frigging goes). But it hardly matters - there's not a character here that isn't straight-jacketed by a stereotype of one kind of another. Jeremy Piven is entertaining as the tightly-wound Adam, and it's his energy that really carries the film, but it's a strictly one note role. When grandma Rose (Doris Roberts), in the throes of an overdue 'deep and meaningful' with her wayward ex-husband, concedes that she shares responsibility for their marriage breakdown, that she 'wasn't always a very good wife', Irwin immediately chimes in with a one-liner about her mythic capacity for assuming guilt. (Ah, so close! Nearly got through the whole film without having a crack at Jewish mothers) It's not funny and, worse, instantly diffuses an interesting dramatic moment - you can almost see Doris Roberts wincing. Meanwhile Irwin himself, the film's only off-beat creation, discards his counter-culture tendencies with apparent ease, donning a suit and getting rid of his ponytail for Benjamin's big day without even being asked. Of course this is to suggest his willingness to compromise, that he's finally learning to care for his family's feelings, but it undermines the character. He's not really 'different' or difficult at all, we learn - when push comes to shove, he'll do exactly what's appropriate. Got that, kids? You can be a free-thinker as long as you don't actually mean it.

This film seems scared that to stray too far from archetypes would be to court disaster - in fact, it would have provided the authenticity for which it so desperately strives. 'Keeping Up with the Steins' is a celebration of family and positive values and it's occasionally quite touching. But if it had allowed itself to cut loose perhaps it could have been something special.

Rating : **1/2

Briony Kidd