At The Movies Filmmaker Tamara Jenkins spins a corning-of-age tale in "Slums of Beverly Hills." SERENA DONADONI Special to The Jewish News T he Abramowitzes are the Jewish Joads. Well, sort of. John Steinbeck's Depression-era clan fled the harsh conditions of the Dust Bowl, while Murray Abramowitz (Alan Arkin) heads to California with his three kids looking for the fabled good life, hoping to put a continent between himself and a depression caused by divorce and perpetual disap- pointment. Always just scrapping by financially, Murray has decided that Ben (David Krumholtz), Vivian (Natasha Lyonne) and Rickey (Eli Marienthal) will have the best education possible, so he enrolls them in the Beverly Hills school district. Just one step ahead of creditors, Murray keeps his family on the move, going from one cheap resi- dential motel to another, carefully maintaining residency within the boundaries of this affluent enclave that represents everything the family doesn't have. It's summer 1976. Fifteen-year-old Vivian has developed breasts (Lyonne donned prosthetics for the part) — which distract and amaze the males around her — and is beginning to re- evaluate her place in the world. Writer/director Tamara Jenkins, mak- ing her feature film debut, takes the raw confusion of Vivian's life and spins a lovely tale — full of raucous humor and refreshing forthrightness — about growing not just older, but wiser. A graduate of New York University's film school, the 35-year- old Jenkins was a solo performance artist before she made several acclaimed shorts (Family Remains, Serena Donadoni is a Detroit-based freelance writer. 8/28 1998 94 Fugitive Love) and received the Guggenheim Fellowship for filmmak- ing. She describes Slums of Beverly Hills, which was developed at the Sundance Institute's screenwriting and filmmakers lab, as semi-autobio- graphical. Born in Philadelphia to an Italian mother and Jewish father, Jenkins moved with her divorced father to California when she was 5. Her late father once owned a Philadelphia strip joint, where her mother was the hat- check girl. "Growing up on the outskirts of Beverly Hills in a kind of economical- ly challenged way," she said by phone from New York, "all that, all the socio- economics — and living with my dad — are true." But the story of Slums of Beverly Hills (Rated R) also allowed her to explore the specificities of growing up 'All Of It' Local filmmakers score smash. JILL DAVIDSON SKLAR Special to The Jewish News A fter the final credits rolled at the end of the 8 p.m. private screening and world premiere of All of It last Thursday, hundreds of investors, friends and family members of writer/director/executive producer Jody Podolsky and producer Darren Gold milled about the lobby of the Landmark Maple Theatre chatting. The consensus? The film — and its filmmakers — are destined for great- ness. "I didn't expect to cry. Really, I Jill Sklar wrote about the filming of All of It in our Nov. 14, 1997, issue. female. Girls physically change into women in a very visible way, Jenkins explained, and "I don't think anyone treats that public nature of it. "In the case of Vivian," she con- tinued, her breasts "are big, not freak- ishly big, but big enough that people see them and comment on them, especially in a motherless household where there's no one to help her with the transition." (That is until her wild cousin Rita, played by Marisa Tomei, surfaces to become an unlike- ly female role model.) "The best metaphor," Jenkins conclud- ed, "is that she has this new equipment and she doesn't have an operating manual and she's just trying to fig- ure it out by her- self. Like how to present herself, how to be, which I think is kind of the essence of adolescence espe- cially for girls." The other fac- tor in Vivian's maturity is com- ing to terms with her father didn't," one woman told a friend. "But it was so wonderful. I just did- n't expect it to be this good." The film will be screened next at the Montreal International Film Festival with showings on Aug. 29, Sept. 1 and 5. It is among 200 films from 50 countries to be shown at the highly regarded festival. "The [Montreal] festival has a really fine reputation for showing the best of world cinema," Podolsky said. Being accepted to the festival was a thrill for both Podolsky and Gold because it signifies acceptance by the film community "No one there changed my dia- per," Podolsky said. "No one there goes to Knollwood." All of It tells the story of Glenda Holbeck and her daughter Amy, who love each other but do not under- stand one another's life path. Glenda is a woman who collects fabulous dessert plates, lunches with gossipy pals, plays tennis and dotes and the family's living conditions. Constantly on the verge of being des- titute, Murray relies heavily on his brother (Uncle Mickey, who is played by Carl Reiner) for financial support even as he tries to maintain a facade of strength for his kids. Vivian learns a difficult lesson by closely observing her father, said Jenkins, "trying to understand dignity and self-sufficiency in a way. The fam- ily is so brutalized by dependency. That kind of humiliation, the erosive nature of that, I think she discov- ers that herself." It wasn't just the casting of 64- year-old Alan Arkin, who gives a brilliant, emo- tionally naked performance, that determined the age of Murray Abramowitz (whose children are constantly being asked, "Is that your grand- father?"). "Part of it has Filmmaker Tamara Jenkins: Memoir and fiction. on her other, daughter, Jillian, a clone of herself. Glenda can set a beautiful - table but is a mess emotionally from =A denying herself a life outside of the home/social scene. Amy, on the other hand, is a career woman living in New York who is so petrified about becoming stuck" like her mother and sister that she avoids committing more deeply to a loving relationship with her boyfriend, Ben. During a visit to Detroit over Yom Kippur, Glenda and Amy have a cri- sis of understanding that leads to a greater awareness not only of their relationship but of themselves as individuals. In her roles as both writer and director, Podolsky is no less than bril- liant. The dialogue and characters are so real it's hard to believe they don't actually exist — that Glenda and Amy and Jillian really aren't the very people who sit in front of you during High Holiday services. "