Arts & Entertainment
In the romantic comedy
Prime, Streep's Jewish
mother frets over her
son's interfaith dating.
Meryl Streep as Jewish mom/therapist Lisa Metzger in Prime
Amy Klein
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
n the new movie Prime, Meryl Streep is
wearing a lavender button-down shirt, a
red shawl draped comfortably around her
broad shoulders and a brown hairdo that
manages to have bangs, wings and flips all
going at the same time. But somehow it's the
double strand of big red beads dangling
around her neck like a loose noose that man-
ages to convey the high state of suffering —
boy does she suffa — of a guilt-ridden, guilt-
giving Jewish mother.
That's right, 56-year-old actor extraordi-
naire Meryl Streep, of Out of Africa, Sophie's
Choice, Kramer vs. Kramer, Postcards from the
Edge, Angels in America and 13 Academy .
Award nominations (she's won two) fame has
taken on the comi-tragic role of a Jewish
mother.
And oy! What a Jewish mother she is. Streep
plays Lisa Metzger, M.S., C.S.W., an Upper
West Side therapist who loves too much: She
loves patients like Rafi (Uma Thurman), her
eldest son David (Bryan Greenberg) and her
religion (Judaism).
When Lisa discovers that her 37-year-old
patient has been dating her 23-year-old son,
she is beset by a professional concern that is
I
October 27.2005
the classic stuff of comedic conflict: Should
she continue to treat this patient and how?
But her character also is more deeply
plagued by a concern that is tragedy for her:
Her son is dating a woman who is not Jewish.
To be sure, interfaith dating is not the only
theme or conflict in the film. Prime is a New
York romantic riff on love and what happens
when obstacles are placed in the way —
obstacles like age, family, religion or the fact
that your therapist is the mother of the than
you're in love with (a situation that's proba-
bly less likely to happen in real life than in
the movies).
But at its core, Prime is also a movie about
the not very cinematic subject of religion —
and the threat of intermarriage.
"I thought it was really unusual to have a
script that had as one of its central dilem-
mas the question of faith:' Streep said.
"That's just amazing. That's not edgy at all, but
it's something people contend with."
Making A Statement
It is a subject that writer-director Ben
Younger contends with personally: He was
raised Modern Orthodox in Brooklyn and
Staten Island. The 33-year-old New Yorker,
who began his career in politics before he
Bryan Greenberg (see related story for his
Michigan connection) plays Lisa's 23-year-old
artist son David Bloomberg,
became a filmmaker (his first film was Boiler
Room in 2000), is no longer part of that com-
munity but is still connected.
"I think it's important for all people to be
open," Younger said. "It's that exclusionary
nature of religion that rdo have a problem
with."
If it's true that artists make a statement in
their work — consider Jewish artists like
What, Meryl? on page 71
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