Arts & Entertainment

"Heights"

urn director

taps into

New York

111..• Jewish gestalt.

Elizabeth Banks, an up-and-
coming actress who converted to
Judaism when she married, is a
central character in "Heights," a
drama that follows five characters
over a 24-hour period on a fall
day in New York City.

MICHAEL FOX

Special to the Jewish News

F

43N

7/ 7

2005

32

or a Catholic from Staten Island, director
Chris Terrio displays a pretty good feel for
assimilated young Jewish professionals in
the relationship drama Heights.
"I didn't feel like a cultural stranger," says the
unassuming 28-year-old, who makes his feature film
debut with the pointed Manhattan ensemble piece.
"I've been to as many seders as I've been to Easter
celebrations, for sure."
As an English literature major at Harvard, and
then in the theater scene in New York, Terrio found
plenty of Jewish compatriots to whom he gravitated.
"As far as the slightly neurotic characteristics and
sense of humor that are sometimes associated with
Jewish characters, those are my friends and that's
me," Terrio says with a wry smile. "I've been made
an honorary New York Jew by association, because
that's the world I live in."
Heights revolves around Jonathan (James Marsden,
X-Men), a Jewish lawyer with an enormous secret,
and his non-Jewish fiancee Isabel (Elizabeth Banks,
Seabiscuit), a photographer beginning to have vague

doubts about their upcoming nuptials.
The film unfolds on a Friday that extends deep
into the night, and also stars Jesse Bradshaw as a ris-
ing actor drawn into the family's web and Glenn
Close as a Shakespearean stage superstar who also
happen to be Isabel's mother.
Heights, which opens July 8 in Metro Detroit, had
its genesis in a one-act play by Amy Fox (see related
story), a Colorado-born Reform Jew and Amherst
grad now based in Brooklyn. That original scene
comprises the film's climax; Fox, in collaboration
with Terrio, imagined the backstory and scripted the
events that lead to the fateful encounter.

Jewish Scenes

The day starts with Isabel shooting a rooftop Jewish
wedding, featuring a ritual she doesn't understand.
"The breaking of the glass is a central symbol in
the film, even though it's not quite as explicit as it
might be," Terrio explains. "Amy and I talked about
the idea of having to destroy something in order to
build it up again. In the course of this night, all of
these relationships are destroyed in order that people
can build themselves up anew."

As for the meaning of the broken glass, Jonathan
and Isabel turn to Rabbi Mendel (George Segal) for
an explanation at their prenuptial meeting that
afternoon. Just a few hours later, unexpectedly,
Jonathan will seek additional counsel from the spiri-
tual leader.
"The original rabbi character was a younger
Reform rabbi," Terrio recalls. "But I thought the
confidant that Jonathan needs is someone who's a
little bit older and more of an authority figure. Not
an authority figure in the sense of the stock charac-
ter of the wise man, but somebody whom you can
joke around with but [can] then turn on a dime and
be a real person."
Jewish viewers — and collectors of movie faux pas
— will wonder why Rabbi Mendel isn't with his
congregation on a Friday night. Terrio, who thank-
fully lacks the annoying self-confidence and smug
self-satisfaction of many young filmmakers, laughs
and flinches simultaneously.
"You've found our Achilles' heel," he replies.
"Originally, the whole film was set on a Saturday.
I sat with Amy and we had to choose our battles.
And we thought that if we could keep all the plates
spinning, maybe at a certain point people would